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First Steps and New Believer Growth
Take faithful first steps after trusting Christ, with help for assurance, prayer, Scripture, church, and obedience.
Resources
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Grow · First Steps
What Does It Mean to Be United with Christ?
Union with Christ is the believer’s Spirit-created relationship with Jesus through which every saving benefit—including justification, adoption, sanctification, and future glory—is received.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
What Does Adoption into God’s Family Mean?
Through Jesus Christ, God welcomes believers as sons and daughters, gives them access to the Father, places them in a new family, lovingly disciplines them, and promises them an eternal inheritance.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
How Should Christians Interpret the Bible?
Faithful Bible interpretation pays attention to literary and historical context, genre, authorial intent, the whole biblical story, Christ, and responsible application.
Article · 8 min read
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Grow · First Steps
What Is Sanctification?
Sanctification is God’s continuing work of making believers increasingly holy and Christlike as they actively respond to the Holy Spirit through Scripture, prayer, obedience, community, and perseverance.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?
Following Jesus means trusting Him as Savior and Lord, learning His way, obeying His teaching, belonging to His people, becoming more like Him, and joining His mission.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
Can a Christian Lose Salvation?
Scripture gives strong assurance that God preserves those who truly belong to Christ while also issuing serious warnings that call professing believers to persevering faith.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
What Is Glorification?
Glorification is the final completion of salvation when believers are raised imperishable, freed from sin, made fully like Christ, and welcomed into the renewed creation.
Article · 6 min read
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Grow · First Steps
Why Context Matters When Reading Scripture
Biblical context includes the surrounding passage, the purpose of the whole book, its historical setting, literary genre, covenant location, and relationship to the whole story fulfilled in Christ.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
How to Read the Four Gospels Together
The four Gospels tell one true story of Jesus through four complementary portraits. Readers benefit from comparing parallel events while also hearing each Gospel’s distinctive message.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
How the Gospel Advances Through Difficult Circumstances
Philippians 1:12–18 shows that imprisonment, opposition, mixed motives, and disrupted plans cannot imprison the Gospel. Christians can interpret hardship through Christ’s mission without minimizing pain.
Article · 4 min read
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Grow · First Steps
What Is the Parable of the Growing Seed?
In Mark 4:26–29, Jesus teaches that God’s kingdom grows through divine power often hidden from human observation, calling disciples to faithful sowing, patience, trust, and readiness for the harvest.
Article · 7 min read
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Grow · First Steps
What Does Galatians 4:21–31 Mean?
Paul uses Sarah and Hagar to contrast slavery under a misused law with the freedom of God’s promise fulfilled in Christ. His argument defends justification by faith and the identity of believers as children of promise.
Article · 8 min read
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