The Bible instructs all believers to gather regularly to hear the preaching of God’s Word, receive baptism and the Lord’s Supper (these are also known as Sacraments), and pray together (Heb. 10:25; 1 Cor. 10:16). Christ is present in these means of God’s grace through the power of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 18:20; John 14:16–17, 26). While the Holy Spirit is not limited to using Word, Sacrament, and prayer in his work of sanctification, these are God’s ordinary means of grace. 

The good seed cannot flourish when it is repeatedly dug up for the purpose of examining its growth. — J. C. Kromsigt

One of my favorite things about trees, especially mature ones, is the way they provide shade and shelter from the natural elements. Yet, everyone knows a seedling doesn’t give much of either. Trees need a consistent supply of sun, water, and nutrients over a long period of time to survive and thrive.
Christians often wonder whether they are growing in holiness.
Sanctification is a slow process of dying to the flesh (mortification) and living unto God (vivification). Just as it is impossible to know exactly what a tree seedling is going to look like in ten years, it can be frustrating to attempt to evaluate a person’s growth in Christ over the short term.
In his parables Jesus uses the image of plants to describe spiritual growth in the gospels of Matthew and John (see Matt. 13:1–32 and John 15:1–7):

“Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matt. 13:8-9, the Parable of the Sower)

Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and its branches to describe the organic union believers have with him.
Throughout the New Testament, believers are encouraged to grow in long-term community with each other in the local church (Acts 2:42; Eph. 4:11–13; Col. 3:16).
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Christ’s sacrifice was once for all, and thus He sits in heaven. And yet, at His seat, He gives Himself to interceding for you and me. What an encouragement that salvation is accomplished through Him, and what further encouragement we have to know that He lives to intercede! Jesus is over all things at the Father’s right hand. From there, He has been “waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet” (Heb 10:13), including those who sent Him to the cross (Matt 26:64/Mark 14:62/Luke 22:69).

Psalm 110:1 holds more references in the New Testament than any other verse from the Old Testament. The New Testament quotes it five times and alludes to it sixteen times by either referring to Jesus’ position at the Father’s right hand or to Jesus’ waiting to conquer His enemies.1 The New Testament quotes Psalm 110:4 three times and alludes to this verse four times as well by referring to Jesus’ priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek.2
I’ve grouped the quotations and allusions to both verses into the headings below, giving the data in the first paragraph(s) and a devotional thought in the closing paragraph of each section. 
Position
Jesus’ right-hand seat is a position of authority over all. There He sits as the Messiah and David’s greater Lord (Matt 22:44 / Mark 12:36 / Luke 20:42–43). His seat shows His superiority over angels (Heb 1:13) “with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Pet 3:22).
As proof of His superiority and lordship, He poured out the Spirit at Pentecost: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this,” (Acts 2:33; cf. 2:34). With this authority, He grants salvation to whom He will: “God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31).
One can only hope to find forgiveness through repentance and acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as Lord. Sovereign over all at the right hand above, He grants forgiveness and gives the Spirit to all who come to Him. 
Power
Speaking of God the Father, Paul referred to “the immeasurable greatness of his power…that He worked in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:19–20). The Father showed His power by both raising Jesus from the dead and placing Him at His right hand.
It seems that Paul recalled the Father’s power to encourage his Ephesian readers that they, too, would live by this power in the present and join Christ in the future after their own resurrection (cf. Col 3:1). The Father’s power in Jesus’ resurrection and placement at God’s right hand is the very same “immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph 1:19), a fact that corresponds with “the hope to which He has called you,” and “the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints” (Eph 1:18). The fulfillment of our hope and the reception of our inheritance correspond to the Father’s power to us who believe. That power is alive and at work in us right now and will be at work to raise us, glorify us, and bring us to heaven one day! 
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By His obedience to God’s will, even in the things that He suffered, He secured salvation for us. As our high priest, Christ teaches us that we have no other way of dealing with our moral failure and its penalty than to come to God and say, “Nothing in my hand I bring, / Simply to thy cross I cling.”

For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. — JOHN 6:38
Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. — HEBREWS 10:7; CF. PSALM 40:7–8
Jesus came to earth to do the will of the Father. Ultimately, the will of God is His righteous decree that determines all that comes to pass and causes all things to work together for His glory (Eph. 1:11; cf. Deut. 29:29). Everything that comes to pass is the will of God, and He accomplishes that in Christ (Col. 1:16–17). But when Christ speaks about coming to do God’s will, He is referring to the will that God has revealed “unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). God’s revealed will is breathed out of His heart and establishes His expectations for His people.
It may surprise us, then, to hear Jesus refer to two wills: His own and His Father’s. In doing so, Jesus opens a window on His humanity. As Andrew Murray says, “Christ had a human will. For instance, he ate when he was hungry, and he shrank from suffering when he saw it coming.”1 While His will was not sinful, Jesus still had to deny it. In taking on flesh, Christ undertook the ultimate challenge of conforming His human will to His Father’s divine will.
Jesus met that challenge; He did the will of God in all things. He performed every duty of the law (Matt. 5:17) and resisted all temptation to transgress it. At the end of His earthly life He could say, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4).
James 4:17 says, “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” We commit sins of omission every day, but Jesus never did. Indeed, He sometimes went out of His way to heal just one person (Mark 5:1–20). He showed compassion to people who were guilty of notorious sins (John 4:1–30; 8:1–11). The disciples accused their master of being unreasonable when He fed crowds of five thousand and then four thousand, because no one could be expected to provide for such multitudes (Mark 6:35–37). But Jesus had compassion on them (Matt. 15:32).
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