Spiritual growth is essential for a healthy life. In fact, it is the most important aspect of your existence. Your physical body has limitations that don’t apply to your soul. What are the things that stunt spiritual growth?
There are people whose bodies have been taken away from them, yet they have gone on to live strong and productive lives. What is their secret? No longer able to control the body they have focused on the mind or the spiritual soul. In so doing, they experience a rich and impactful life.
Jesus on Spiritual Growth
Jesus taught that your relationship with God was the most important life-giving aspect of your existence. He said, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36).
Staying connected to God through His Son, Jesus Christ, is the one essential for spiritual growth. Just as the physical body cannot live for long without water or air, the spiritual soul dies without connection to God.
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:5-6).
Three Big Spiritual Growth Killers
SO – What are the BIG THREE THINGS that kill your spiritual connection to God?
1. You don’t have enough time.
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35).
You will make time for the things that are important to you. You will fight tooth and nail to get the things that are essential to your existence. Take water away from me and in a few days, I’m suffering. Take air away from me and in less than two minutes, I’m fighting to get air.
The same should be true with your relationship with God. Go a day without talking to God and you should be hurting inside.
The truth about time is that we all have plenty of it. The issue is how we choose to spend it.
“In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly” (Psalm 5:3).
Try starting and ending your day alone with God.
2. You don’t know what it means to “spend time with God.”
She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said … few things are needed … Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:39, 42).
Don’t make this too complicated. Spending time with God doesn’t have to look much different from spending time with your best friend. You talk. You go places together. You go over to his house. You listen to him. You invest your time and resources in the relationship.
A few suggestions about your time alone with God:
- Be yourself.
- Begin where you are.
- Talk about everyday things.
- Don’t beat yourself up by your lack of prayer.
- Don’t make prayer a big event.
Sometimes I go months praying to God about little things, not hearing much from Him. I think our expectations can kill our prayer life. Not every prayer needs to be answered. Not every prayer is life-changing. In fact, most prayers, in and of themselves, are not. Do the work of talking to God about the little things, and when the BIG thing comes along, you’ll be ready.
3. You don’t know how to make it a habit.
He (Jesus) went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read …” (Luke 4:16).
My parents gave me more than I can ever repay. One of the greatest gifts they gave me was the discipline of going to church every week.
How do you make something a consistent discipline? You do it consistently, even when you don’t “feel like it” – especially when you don’t feel like it.
Whether you are a musician or an athlete or an artist or a surgeon or a husband or a wife or a father or a mother – excellence at whatever you do is a function of “time put it.” You will never master anything in life if you give up every time you “don’t feel like it.”
The same is true with your Spiritual Growth. It’s only as excellent as the time you put into it. The Spiritual practices – like praying, fasting, meditation, worship, serving – are only as effective as the amount of time you consistently practice them.
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously” (2 Cor. 9:6).
There they are – the three BIG things that kill spiritual growth. I pray that God will bless you as you seek to follow him every day!
