7 Spiritual Growth Tips

The children’s song says, “Read your Bible. Pray every day and you’ll grow, grow, grow.” Daily prayer and Bible reading are two of the foundations for spiritual growth.

“Read Your Bible”

Get into God’s Word daily. You don’t have to dedicate every waking moment to Bible reading, but you should spend time in God’s Word each day. Find a Bible reading plan that you can stick to. Many people read three chapters a day in their Bible to help them read completely through in one year. Instead of reading for a certain number of chapters each day you can choose to read for a set amount of time.

The last two years I have taken the number of pages and my Bible and divide it by the number 300. For me that works out to just over five pages a day. With that schedule I can read the Bible in a little over 10 months which gives me a few extra days to linger on certain passages or get distracted in studying a topic if I want.

“Pray Every Day”

While reading the Bible is God’s way of communicating with us, prayer is our way of talking to Him. You should have a prayer list that you pray through. A few suggested items for daily prayer are your spouse, kids, extended family members and missionary families you know. You can also pray as God brings needs and blessings to your mind. Certainly you can pray at any time or place; but having a dedicated prayer time each day will help you stay connected with the Lord.

Attend Church

Fellowshipping with other Christians is one of the things Jesus taught us while he was on the earth. Those who refuse to congregate with other believers are often those who have trouble avoiding temptation in their lives.

God has given His blessing on the organization of the church. It is the authority which God has established in the life of a believer. The church does not exist to tell an individual Christian what he can and cannot do, rather it was founded by Jesus to give Christians a place where they can serve in the body of Christ and get the spiritual help they need.

Baptism

Obedience is a key ingredient to spiritual growth. The first step of obedience after salvation that the Bible teaches is baptism (Matthew 28:19, 20). This announces to others that you have been saved. Baptism does not save the believer, but spiritual growth will be limited if the believer refuses to follow the Lord in baptism.

Baptism is a public identification that the person trusts in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection for their salvation. Jesus was baptized as an example for us (Matthew 3:13-17).

Serve Others

Finding a way to be involved in the lives of others is a sure way to grow spiritually. When other people are asking you questions about the Bible you will become more studious of God’s Word.

Witness

You should be active in sharing your Christian testimony with others. In Romans 1:16 Paul states that he is not ashamed of the Gospel. As a child of God you have been given the gift of salvation through the Gospel. This is a gift that is available to others as well, but they need someone to tell them about the love and forgiveness God offers. You can do this by being a witness to them.

Give

As a Christian who is involved in a local church, there are plenty of opportunities to give to the needs of the church and the needs of others. Besides the fact that the Bible teaches us that everything belongs to God, it teaches the principle of the tithe. There are differing opinions on tithing and whether it is necessary still today; however, whatever you believe about the teaching of tithing, the Bible clearly shows that we should support the work of the ministry (1 Corinthians 16:1, 2; 2 Corinthians 9:7), and particularly those who teach us God’s Word (1 Timothy 5:17).

I hope these seven spiritual growth tips have been a help. These are just the basics. Any time God teaches you something from His Word you can continue to grow only as you obey.

Just Listen....

As you pray, you must also remember to listen to God's Message to you. 

What to do with our feelings??

Before I begin, I want to make it clear that I am only speaking of the stronghold/behavioral aspect of fear, guilt, etc. There ARE spirits of guilt, fear, worthlessness, etc. that can also be a factor and must be addressed (and driven out). However, if all we do is address the spirits but leave the strongholds in place, they are liable to return. This teaching deals strictly with the behavioral piece of the puzzle.

Feelings do not necessarily speak truth. If you feel guilty, it does not mean that you are guilty. Many times, feelings merely tell us what is going on in our thought life (or what we are really believing). If we think we are guilty, there will be feelings of guilt as the fruit of those thoughts or beliefs. It's sort of like feeling a hot stove; feelings are meant to help alert us of something that is wrong. Feelings should not be ignored, but properly interpreted. For example, if you feel guilty, don't start thinking "Oh, it must be true. I need to go confess my sins again and go try to dot every i and cross every t." That is letting feelings tell us what to do, and feelings can be (and often are) wrong.

When we begin to feel guilty, we need to instead get to the root of the problem and address it with God's Word. What does God's Word say about our guilt? It tells us that if we confess our sin and forsake it, we are forgiven and cleansed of whatever kind of unrighteousness that we've committed. When we choose to believe that over how we feel, then our feelings will begin to change because they are merely the fruit of our thoughts and beliefs. In this case, our feelings were wrong because our belief was wrong. Remember,feelings are just the fruit of our thoughts and beliefs. If we feel wrong, then it wouldn't hurt to stop and ask ourselves what we believe. Do we believe that when a man confesses his sin and believes upon Christ, that he is forgiven? Or do we, in the back of our minds, wonder if we've sinned too badly, or if we need to do something before we can be forgiven? Our feelings can be a great revealer of what we are really believing under the surface.

It is important to be balanced when dealing with our feelings. I don't think it's healthy to completely ignore our feelings, but I can assure you that it is not healthy to go by our feelings either. The key is to learn how to discern what our feelings are really telling us, and then get to the root of the problem. Feelings of guilt, for example, do not necessarily mean that we are indeed guilty, but rather that our beliefs are not rooted and grounded on God's Word like they ought to be.

A dirty conscience should not be ignored, but rather investigated. False guilt is an indication of a faulty belief. Is a clean conscience important according to God's Word? Yes!

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Hebrews 9:14

So with that said, I believe it is important to have a clean conscience. But we can only have that clean conscience when we stand firm on God's Word and believe what it really says about the forgiveness of our sins. When we truly believe that the Blood of Christ has paid the full price for our failures, only then can we have a truly clean conscience. As long as we think that we've messed up too badly, or need to do something before we can be forgiven, we will live with a dirty conscience. That is because we don't truly believe we are forgiven, and when we don't believe that we're forgiven, how on earth can we expect to feel like it? We can't!

Fear is another feeling which is completely unnecessary in the life of a believer. How do we know this? God's Word tells us that perfect love casts out all fear. For those who think that fear is a natural and unavoidable feeling, God's Word tells us that "He who fears has not been made perfect in love."

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

1 John 4:18

Got fears? Don't believe them, but rather seek to be established and made perfect in God's great love for you. That will dispel those fears. What most people do is go by their feelings and believe them, rather than seeing them as a warning that something isn't right in their beliefs or thought lives. That is where many well intending Christians go in the ditch. Another ditch is to completely ignore those feelings (or warning signs), and do nothing about them. The question I ask you is, what are you doing about those feelings? Are you going by what you feel as if it were truth? Or are you asking yourself, "What am I thinking or believing that may not be aligned with God's Word?"

Fear, like false guilt, is a result of believing something other than God's Word. False guilt is when we choose to believe an imagination that has risen itself against the knowledge of God (see 2 Corinthians 10:4-5), even though God's Word assures us that when we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us of any sort of unrighteousness that we've committed.

Now of course, not all feelings should be interpreted as a fault in our thoughts or beliefs. There are times when then Holy Spirit will give a person an uneasy feeling about a situation (discernment), or maybe a burden to pray over somebody that we normally wouldn't pray over. These types of feelings are used by God as a means to communicate with our spirits, and should not be ignored.

However, what I am talking about in this teaching is feelings of low self-esteem, fear, false guilt, shame, etc. Feelings along these lines are spelled out clearly in God's Word as being completely unnecessary for the children of God. What these types of feelings (false guilt, fear, etc.) have in common is that they are rooted in a belief or imagination that has risen itself against the knowledge of God (what is spoken clearly in His Word).

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Be a better YOU!!

In all that YOU do....

Even though the holidays are over and we have come forth a new year, 

we must remind ourselves, on a daily basis to keep Jesus' name in any and

every single thing we do.  Let's not be too proud to ask for forgiveness

or too proud to thank Him for His many daily blessings.  

Love Yourself

When I say that you need to love yourself, I'm not referring to the stuck-up, prideful, worldly type of loving oneself (also known as self-worship); I'm talking about a concept of being thankful, and appreciating the person who God has made in you. The worldly type of loving yourself is where you are stuck up, prideful and arrogant, whereas this type of loving yourself is based upon humility and thankfulness. The two could not be more different!

The amount of bondage that results from self-rejection, self-hatred, unwillingness to forgive oneself and so forth is shocking. Below are just a few of the symptoms:

- Self-rejection; not accepting yourself, always beating up on yourself, not happy with the person that God made you, etc.

- Self-hatred; hating the person who God made in you, considering yourself ugly, dumb, clumsy, etc.

- Unforgiveness or bitterness; when a person continues to hold things against them-self, such as something in their past that was embarrassing, gross, or that they are still ashamed of (even after repentance).

- Being hard on oneself; always beating up on yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, etc. Always seeing yourself as worthless, or pushing to reach irrational goals just to feel good about yourself.

- Low self-esteem; always seeing yourself as a failure, or less than those around you.

- Ashamed of yourself; refusing to forgive yourself from something in your past.

- Feeling ugly or stupid; seeing yourself as ugly, worthless, stupid, no good for nothing, etc.

The list can go on and on, but if this sounds like you, then keep reading!

You need to be thankful

Many today consider themselves dumb, ugly, stupid, clumsy, worthless, etc. Did you know that you were created in God's own image, and whenever you consider yourself dumb, ugly, etc., you're actually considering something that God made as being ugly, dumb, etc.??

Genesis 1:26, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

Let me ask you a couple questions...

- Did God create your physical body? If so, would you dare make a statement that God made an ugly body?

- Did God create your mind and intellect? If so, would you dare make a statement that God created a dumb, stupid, or worthless brain?

- If God created you in His image, then are you saying that His image is dumb, stupid, worthless or ugly?

David was a humble man with a heart after God's own, yet he praised and thanked God for the marvelous work that God had made (referring to his physical body):

Psalms 139:14, "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well."

David was not boasting in who he was, but rather being thankful and rejoicing over the beautiful creation that God made in him! How many who consider themselves ugly are looking at things the way David did? Probably not too many!

King David appreciated and thanked God for what God gave him. Instead of saying, "I'm ugly", David was saying, "Wow! Look at what God gave me! It's marvelous!!" It's vital that we develop this same attitude about what God's given each of us as well.

You need to forgive yourself!

Much is said on how we are to forgive others, but many of us seem to skip over the concept of forgiving ourselves. Believe it or not, it's equally important and vital to be sure we've forgiven ourselves, as it is that we've forgiven others! Unforgiveness brings much bondage into our lives, regardless if it's towards God, others or even ourselves. Bitterness (the fruit of unforgiveness) is a means by which many are defiled:

Hebrews 12:15, "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled."

Regardless of what we've done in our pasts, whether it be an abortion, fornication, or some gross and embarrassing sin, it's vital that we forgive ourself from everything in our pasts that we are ashamed of. If God chose to forget our sins for His sake, then I think we ought to do the same:

Isaiah 43:25, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."

God's Word says that He has actually removed our sins from us! If we continually beat up on ourselves, it's known as false guilt, and is a tool of the enemy to pull us down. If we still associate ourselves with our sinful past, then we need to change the way we see things... why? 

Because the way we are thinking does not line up with what God's Word has to say.

Psalms 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us."

When we associate ourselves with our past failures, after God's Word has assured us that they have been removed from us... then do you realize that you aren't really believing what God's Word is saying? It's time that we make that choice to forgive ourselves, and then align our thinking with what God's Word has to say. If God says it's removed from us, then we need to take Him for His Word, and believe what it has to say!

If this teaching has ministered to you, then I believe you'll also want to read, "The Forgiveness of Sins".

Jesus is THE REASON!!

CHRISTmas is the time we remember to put CHRIST in the holiday season, when in reality, 

we should put CHRIST into our every day living.  We need to be an example of Him.  

We need to live by His Word and His way of life.