There is a wonderful Southern Gospel group of seniors named The Social Security Boys (really!), and they sing a song with the above title, “Pilgrims Making Progress.” Listen to it on YouTube and visit their website for their signature song. The scripture confirms that humans are pilgrims but the question is, Are we making progress?
A “pilgrimage” is a sojourning, a wandering without any constant abode or fixed holding. Jacob spoke of his life in this manner: “And Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage'” (Genesis 47:9 NKJV).
The Psalmist said, “I am a stranger in the earth; Do not hide Your commandments from me” (Psalm 119:19). In Ephesians we are described as “no longer strangers and foreigners
All believers are on a pilgrimage on planet Earth, heading for our home country in Heaven, and God wants to see us progress. For example, in Philippians 1:25, Paul wrote, “And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith.” The Philippian believers needed a teacher for their progress [growth, advancement] and joy in the faith. Later, Paul wrote he’d rather go to heaven but he needed to stay around for the believers’ sake.
In Ephesians 4:15 believers are encouraged to be “speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head–Christ.” And in I Peter 2:2 we have that well-known illustration, “As newborn babes, desire the genuine milk of the word, that you may grow by it.” So even though we are “complete in Him” there is room for growth as we allow our completeness to show out in various areas of our lives.
Many years later Paul wrote to Timothy: “Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all [or, in all things]” (I Timothy 4:15). Yes, we are pilgrims on Earth and we need the Word of God to make progress!
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