Good morning! I’m glad to welcome you to worship today at Hillcrest Baptist Church.

In America you find Bibles are everywhere– in grocery stores, motel rooms, book stores, and they come in all sizes, shapes, translations, and versions. You can get them leather bound, cloth bound, or paperback. For years the Bible has out sold every other major bestseller. Just a few years ago over 500 million Bibles were published in the world in more than 18,000 languages.

However, even with the abundance of the Word of God in printed form, audio form, and smart Apps that allow you to take it everywhere you go, preaching and teaching surveys are telling us that we are a culture that is diminishing in spiritual maturity and knowledge of doctrinal truth.

As we come to the second step, GROW, in Our Strategy (how at Hillcrest we biblically fulfill our mission), we will see that every Christian is expected to GROW in maturity in their faith in Christ. To GROW takes intentionality and discipline on the part of every believer to personally read, study and memorize the Word of God.

Warren Wiersbe has stated, “After over forty years of ministry, I am convinced that spiritual immaturity is the number one problem in our churches.”

In 1 John 2:12-14 we will discover some great truths about growing in faith.