Having taken hold of our freedom in Christ, we now need to concentrate on growing to maturity. Many of us are desperate for union with God but are unwilling or unable to let go completely of our attachments to the world. In this final section we will look at the importance of relating well to others, and how to ensure that we stay on the path of becoming more and more like Jesus. We will learn how the Holy Spirit takes us through some critical lessons before we can become fruitful. There are many areas that the Holy Spirit will school us, and the lessons need to be learned–and mastered, because we will be tested continually, sometimes intensely.

We need to realise and be prepared that the tests become increasingly challenging as we progress in our learning with the Holy Spirit. Although He is gentle and patient as our Teacher, He is also very strict and will not lower His standards down to ours. He works with us at our pace, on our own customised curriculum over and over again but He will not move us a quarter inch ahead if He is not satisfied with our level of yieldedness. We need to be aware of how tasking and draining this can be and prepare to put structures and support groups in place accordingly, so that we do not come plummeting down and lose the grounds previously gained.