with His will as 'growth in grace' is, we shall have the petition that
we desire. That longing to know Him better and to possess more of His
grace, like the tendrils of some climbing plant, will always find the
support round which it may twine, and by which it may ascend.

The other condition of growth is exercise. Use the grace which you have,
and it increases. Practice the truth which you know, and many things
will become clearer. The blacksmith's muscles are strengthened by
wielding the forge-hammer, but unused they waste. The child grows by
exercise. To him that hath--truly possesses with that possession which
only use secures--shall be given.

Communion with Christ, including prayer, and exercise are the means of
growth.

IV. Lastly, observe the solemn alternative to growth.

It is not a question of either growing or not growing, and there an end;
but if you will look at the context you will see that the exhortation of
my text comes in in a very significant connection. 'Behold! beware, lest
being led away ... ye fall from your own steadfastness.' 'But grow in
grace.' That is to say, the only preventive of falling away from
steadfastness is continual progress. The alternative of advance is
retrogression. There is no standing still upon the inclined plane. If
you are not going up, gravity begins to act, and down you go. There must
either be continual advance or there will be certain decay and
corruption. As soon as growth ceases in this physiology _disintegration_
commences. Just as the graces exercised are strengthened, so the graces
unexercised decay. The slothful servant wraps his talent in a napkin,
and buries it in the ground. He may try to persuade his Master and
himself with 'There Thou hast that is Thine'; but He will not take up
what you buried. Rust and verdigris will have done their work upon the
coin; the inscription will be obliterated and the image will be marred.
You cannot bury your Christian grace in indolence without diminishing
it. It will be like a bit of ice wrapped in a cloth and left in the sun,
it will all have gone into water when you come to take it out. And the
truth that you do _not_ live by, whose relations and large harmonies and
controlling power are not being increasingly realised in your lives;
that truth is becoming less and less real, more and more shadowy, and
ghostlike to you. Truth which is not growing is becoming fossilised.
'The things most surely believed' are often the thi