Author Scot McKnight offers this scale for measuring our spiritual growth. Do you find this helpful? What’s missing? Where are you on the scale? How do we move from one level to the next?
Level One: I
In this level a human is self-absorbed, perceives himself or herself at the center of the universe — or acts that way, and lives a life that is shaped by self-consumption.
Level Two: I and God
In this level a human is both self-absorbed and aware of God. God is out there and “I” am here. We’re in this world together. In some ways there’s room for God but God isn’t given any room. Deism fits here.
Level Three: God and I
In this level a human shifts away from self-absorption to giving way to God. Theism fits here: there is a real God, that God is creator and sustainer and worthy of worship. The human senses accountability and responsibility before God, but God is not yet defined in Christian terms in a clear and robust manner. Here God is God and “I” am not.
Level Four: God in Me
In this level a human has a “personal” relationship with God, often in Christian terms or quasi-Christian terms, and God is perceived as at work in “me.” God is “for me” and God supports my ambitions. God is perceived as “serving” humans — and God can be relied upon to work in this world on “my” behalf. Health and wealth gospels fit here; therapeutic gospels fit here.
Level Five: I in God
In this level the perception is changing to see that it is not so much God at work to bring about “my” ambitions but that the “I” is now in this world to love and serve God and to bring about God’s “mission” (God’s ambition).
Level Six: We in God, in Christ, through the Spirit
In this level the “I” becomes welded with God’s People — the “I” is part of the Body of Christ. It is not about “me” but about what God has done and is doing and will do in Christ — life, death, burial, resurrection, exaltation, second coming, kingdom, God as All in All. It is about being gospel-drenched. The “I” becomes more of a “We-shaped-I.” The God in whom we dwell is made known in Christ, in the cross, in the resurrection. We are wired to glorify God in Christ through the power of the Spirit.
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