Tag Archives: How spiritual growth happens

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A Perfect Set Up For Spiritual Growth

So Grow For It!

Synopsis: For most, spiritual growth is a mystery. It is vague, undefined, something that is felt, not measured. Yet according to Peter, it’s a pretty practical matter, and he offers some encouraging insight into it: spiritual growth requires an active partnership with God the senior partner, and you the junior partner. Now, if that puts some pressure for your growth back on your shoulders, here’s the deal: God has done his part in setting you up for spiritual growth. 2 Peter 1:3 says: “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.” Did you see the word “everything” in that verse? In Greek, that means — wait for it — “everything!” God has set you up, my friend, to be a growing, godly believer. Me, too!

Project 52—Memorize:
2 Peter 1:2-3

“May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life… In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises… work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen.”

Every authentic, healthy follower of Christ wants to grow spiritually. That’s usually right up there at the top of everyone’s wish list. But just how does one experience spiritual growth? That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?

For most, spiritual growth is a mystery. It is vague, not defined, something that is felt, not measured. If it is to happen at all, we see ourselves as the passive recipients of a divine agent that catalyzes growth rather than as the catalyst ourselves. In other words, our development into deeper spirituality, stability, maturity, and Christ-likeness is more up to God than it is to us.

Yet according to Peter, there is to be a pretty active partnership in this business of growth. God is the senior partner, you the junior. And here’s the deal: God has done his part in setting you up for spiritual growth. Notice what verse 3 says: “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.” Did you see the word “everything” in that verse? In the Greek, that means “everything!” God has set you up, my friend, to be a growing, godly believer. Me, too!

Now it is up to us to supplement what God has so graciously and completely done in order to move along the continuum toward a deeper spirituality. So what is our growth assignment then?  Look at verse II Peter 1:5-8:

“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Notice the seven key catalytic agents to growth that Peter mentions: moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, patient endurance, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.

Very simply, when there is a choice between that which is morally pure and anything else, guess what?  You and I have to choose moral purity!  God can’t choose for us. He can strengthen us and prompt us, but we must make the choice. Added to moral purity must be Biblical knowledge, which frankly doesn’t come without regular meditation on God’s Word. Furthermore, purity and knowledge are safeguarded by self-control. Self-control is what teaches you to say “no” to anything that would hinder, hurt or destroy God’s work in you or in another. (See Titus 3:11-13) Adding to self-control is the exercise of patient endurance. Truthfully, there will be times when the only thing we can do is to grit our teeth and hang in there! Endurance must be connected to godliness or it is nothing more than stubbornness. Godliness means to think and act like God; it is to practice the presence of God at all times. Then along with godliness comes kindness and care for our brothers. Finally, to wrap everything into that which causes growth, we must express Christ-like love for all people at all times.

Purity, learning, self-control, endurance, godliness, kindness, and love are the things that you can and must do to grow.  And they are the very things that will make you more productive in your faith and usefulness to your Lord.

That’s your assignment today.  God has already given you everything you need for growth, so get out there and “grow” for it!

“A soul may be in as thriving a state when thirsting, seeking and mourning after the Lord as when actually rejoicing in Him; as much in earnest when fighting in the valley as when singing upon the mount.” ~John Newton

Reflect and Apply: The Lord has given you everything you need to grow into a thriving, useful, God-pleasing saint. Therefore, you have no reason not to grow spiritually. So today, do your part to supplement what your gracious Father has already done for you.

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How Spiritual Growth Happens—Or Doesn’t

Whoever Has Ears To Hear, Let Them Hear

Why doesn’t spiritual growth happen in your life like you want—like God wants? Jesus says it’s because the soil of your heart is preventing it. You’ve got a soil issue: hardened soil – you’ve become spiritually calloused, shallow soil – your attitude toward the things of God has become cavalier, or cluttered soil – your priorities are unguarded and are squeezing God out. If any of those describe you, allow the Holy Spirit to do some soil analysis, because once you identify and remove the growth barriers, Jesus also says unbelievable kingdom fruitfulness will happen—thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted— growth that is beyond human comprehension.

The Journey: Luke 8:4-8

Jesus told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

The Parable of the Sower is fundamentally a story about spiritual growth, which is God’s intention for you. He created you with the capacity to grow.

Think about how newborns grow. Physically, their growth-rate in the first year of life is stunning. Their eating is non-stop, so that by the end of year one, they’ve gone from six to eight pounds to around twenty. It is not uncommon for babies to triple in size. It is amazing

That kind of growth should also be true of our spiritual life. And as his child, our Father hopes and expects us to grow up to think, act and become increasingly like his firstborn. That’s called Christlikeness. But far too often, our Heavenly Father doesn’t see that in us.

Rather, he sees lives paralyzed by fear, doubt, hurt, shame, or choked by the pursuit of temporal stuff and fleshly pleasures — what we might call Christ-unlikeness. Professor Robert Mulholland said, “being conformed to the image of Christ [must begin] primarily at the point of our unlikeness to his image.”

Jesus told this story to help us identify and eliminate our growth barriers. Each barrier is tied to variable within the soil, or our spiritual receptivity. He mentions three:

The first growth barrier is hardened soil. (v.4) Some seed fell on the path where man and beast walked, leaving it hardpacked. If seed fell there, it wouldn’t have a chance. Seed needs soft soil.

Unfortunately, our hearts can become hard toward God’s Word. Why? The Bible gives several reasons: One is sin: Hebrews 3:13 says the deceit of sin hardens us. Are you entertaining sin? Two is disappointment: Hebrews 10:38 infers hardening can come from suffering and sadness. Three is bitterness: Hebrews 12:15 says a root of bitterness will harden you to God’s grace.

The growth barrier Jesus is describing here is spiritual callousness. So if you’re allowing sin, disappointment or bitterness to go unchecked, what’s God calling you to do? Repent of it and release it. The path back to soft soil always goes through repentance. Repentance opens a crack in even the hardest of hearts, where amazingly the seed of God’s Word will find a way to grow.

The second growth barrier is shallow soil. (v.5) Much of Israel was nothing more than rock covered by a couple of inches of topsoil. When a seed sprouted roots, they hit rock, and had no chance to deepen—and no chance to thrive.

The growth barrier Jesus is describing here is a casual attitude toward God. What does that mean? It’s faith that doesn’t develop a strong devotion. It’s discipleship that doesn’t exercise the disciplines of prayer, giving, study, and service. It’s spirituality that’s me-centered rather than God-directed and others-focused. It’s Christianity that’s unserious, cavalier.

If that’s you, your faith is shallow. So what action will lead to deepening your soil? Repent and return. Confess your shallowness. Then return to doing what you did when you first came to love Jesus (Rev. 2:5). You submerged yourself in prayer, serving, in sharing. You soaked in God’s Word—meditating, memorizing, intentionally applying scripture. You spent time with God’s people. That kind of heart-soil grows rooted disciples.

The third growth barrier is cluttered soil. (v.7) It’s soft and deep enough to sustain growth, but it’s wasting its nutrients on weeds. It’s choked by competition with stuff. The growth barrier here is unguarded priorities. You’re not deliberately defiant or superficial, you allow the concerns of life and the lure of wealth — worry weeds — to distract you. I think Jesus would say it’s the most dangerous soil condition of all because it’s subtle and justifiable.

So what course of action is needed here? Repent and reprioritize. (Mt. 6:33) You’ll need to do some weeding because worry weeds don’t just voluntarily go away. You do spiritual weeding by re-prioritizing your calendar to allow God to be first in your schedule. You reprioritize your financial life to defeat the deceit of wealth. If you’re going to thrive, you’ve got to reprioritize!

Now the good in this story is that Jesus says where you cultivate soil that’s soft and deep and uncluttered, unbelievable growth and fruitfulness will happen! At the end of this parable Jesus says in verse 23, “The good soil represents the hearts of those who truly accept God’s message and produce a huge harvest—thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted.” He’s saying the kingdom fruitfulness that God plans for you is beyond human comprehension. And Jesus said over in John 15:8, “It’s to my Father’s glory that you bear much fruit.”

Spiritual growth is not an event, it’s a way of life; it’s not a destination you reach, it happens on the way. That’s why we must continually offer God the kind of heart soil in which the seed of his kingdom can grow – soft, uncluttered and dedicated. As we do, we won’t need to worry about growth, for God himself guarantees that unbelievable spiritual abundance will happen in us.

Do you desire that kind of spiritual growth and kingdom fruitfulness? Offer him your soil!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, I give you the soil of my heart. I repent of the things that have cluttered it, that have hardened it. Do what you must to make it the kind of soil in which your kingdom can lavishly grow. More than anything, I want the produce of my life to bring glory to you.
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A Perfect Setup For Spiritual Growth

Reflect:
II Peter 1:2-3

“May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life… In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises… work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen.”

Every authentic, healthy follower of Christ wants to grow spiritually. That’s usually right up there at the top of everyone’s wish list. But just how does one experience spiritual growth? That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?

For most, spiritual growth is a mystery. It is vague, not defined, something that is felt, not measured. If it is to happen at all, we see ourselves as the passive recipients of a divine agent that catalyzes growth rather than as the catalyst ourselves. In other words, our development into deeper spirituality, stability, maturity, and Christ-likeness is more up to God than it is to us.

Yet according to Peter, there is to be a pretty active partnership in this business of growth. God is the senior partner, you the junior. And here’s the deal: God has done his part in setting you up for spiritual growth. Notice what verse 3 says: “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.” Did you see the word “everything” in that verse. In the Greek, that means “everything!” God has set you up, my friend, to be a growing, godly believer. Me, too!

Now it is up to us to supplement what God has so graciously and completely done in order to move along the continuum toward deeper spiritually. So what is our growth assignment then? Look at verse II Peter 1:5-8:

“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Notice the seven key catalytic agents to growth that Peter mentions: moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, patient endurance, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.

Very simply, when there is a choice between that which is morally pure and anything else, guess what? You and I have to choose moral purity! God can’t choose for us. He can strengthen us and prompt us, but we must make the choice. Added to moral purity must be Biblical knowledge, which frankly doesn’t come without regular meditation on God’s Word. Furthermore, purity and knowledge are safeguarded by self-control. Self-control is what teaches you to say “no” to anything that would hinder, hurt or destroy God’s work in you or in another. (See Titus 3:11-13) Adding to self-control is the exercise of patient endurance. Truthfully, there will be times when the only thing we can do is to grit our teeth and hang in there! Endurance must be connected to godliness or it is nothing more than stubbornness. Godliness means to think and act like God; it is to practice the presence of God at all times. Then along with godliness comes kindness and care for our brothers. Finally, to wrap everything into that which causes growth, we must express Christ-like love for all people at all times.

Purity, learning, self-control, endurance, godliness, kindness and love are the things that you can and must do to grow. And they are the very things that will make you more productive in you faith and useful to your Lord.

That’s your assignment today. God has already given you everything you need for growth, so get out there and “grow” for it!

“A soul may be in as thriving a state when thirsting, seeking and mourning after the Lord as when actually rejoicing in Him; as much in earnest when fighting in the valley as when singing upon the mount.” ~John Newton

Reflect and Apply: The Lord has given you everything you need to grow into a thriving, useful, God-pleasing saint. Therefore, you have no reason not to grow spiritually. So today, do your part to supplement what your gracious Father has already done for you.

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Are You Expecting?

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Thessalonians 1
Meditation: I Thessalonians 1:9-10

“They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead— Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom.”

Shift Your Focus…  Are you expecting? Expecting the Lord to return at any moment, that is.

The believers in the city of Thessalonica to whom Paul wrote these words believed that Christ could come back at any second. They were young in their faith, only about one-year-old in the Lord, and they were already getting a reputation in the region for their action-oriented faith, their love-inspired good words, their unshakable hope in the face of persecution, and their passionate expectation of Jesus’ imminent return.

Their expectation of Christ’s soon return was not some silly pie-in-the-sky sort of wishful thinking. It was not a form of escapism to ease the pain of their persecution. It was not rooted in reality avoidance so they wouldn’t have to carry out the daily responsibilities of being good Christians. It was simply an authentic belief the Jesus was going to do as he promised: return soon and take them home to be with him.

Rather than writing them off as overly emotional or shallow new believers, Paul praises them for this spirit of expectation. Because there was a fundamental sense of the Lord’s return, these guys were turning the heat up on their Christian living: They were busy doing the Lord’s work. They were paying attention to holy living. They were not shrinking back from their Christian testimony in spite of hardship. They were passionately living out their faith. They were fully engaged in what it means to be Christian precisely because they knew the Lord would come back at any moment, and they wanted to be the kind of church that Jesus would be proud of upon his return.

That is the way believers ought to live. We should be living with a passionate expectation that Jesus could return at any moment. And as a consequence of that belief, we ought to be living fully engaged Christianity so that the Master will be proud of us upon his return.

Let me ask you this: How would you live the rest of this week if you knew Jesus was returning exactly seven days from this moment? What would change about your behavior between now and then? What people would you share Christ with? What relationships would you make sure were reconciled? Would “I love you” be said more often around your house? How about “I’m sorry?” Or “how can I help you?” Would your church attendance, your tithing record, your daily devotions, and the way you relate to people improve between now and then?

The real possibility is that Jesus just might return between now and next week. We just don’t know. But what we do know is that Jesus has called us to live as if he could return at any moment. Since Christ could come at any moment, Paul teaches throughout I and II Thessalonians that we are to live:

  • In holiness—especially in the area of sexual purity…and he says this with a sense of urgency.
  • In harmony—that is the result of truly loving each other…so much that we are willing to lay down our lives for one another.
  • In humility—to live in such a way that we draw the attention of others, not because of how sensational we are, but because of how honest, hard working and honorable we are.
  • In hopefulness—which occurs when we allow an eternal perspective to permeate the very core of our existence and affect everything we do, say and think.
  • In helpfulness—living out faith so practically that our lives are characterized by servant-heartedness and sacrificial selflessness toward one another.

When we live in the kind of readiness that Christ could return at any moment—in holiness, harmony, humility, hopefulness and helpfulness—the natural bi-product will be that contagious faith will exude from our lives in much the same as it did from these amazing Thessalonians Christians.

Are you expecting? You should be!

“God destines us for an end beyond the grasp of reason.” ~Thomas Aquinas

Prayer… My affirmation of faith, O God, is that Jesus is coming again.  He is coming for all who long for his appearance, who have readied themselves for his return.  I want to be counted in that number.  So again today, I ready myself for that possibility and I pray in my spirit, “even so, come Lord Jesus.”