Spiritual Growth
Growth is expected of any living thing. Throughout life we grow. Its only when life is taken away that growth stops. And the same is true spiritually. If we are alive with Christ we should grow – it’s expected (Eph 4:15). So much so that the writer to the Hebrew Christians (Heb 5:12) was astounded that they were still spiritual ‘babies’ rather than pressing on to maturity.
What is Spiritual Growth?
Spiritual growth is the process of becoming more and more like Jesus. Spiritual growth is perhaps best described in 2 Peter 1:3-8. It tells us that, in God’s power, we have “everything we need” to live lives of godliness. This is the goal of spiritual growth – to be ‘godly’, or to put it another way, ‘like God’ in our thinking, behaviour, responses, in every part. We are to “grow into Jesus who is the head” (Eph 4:15). It’s the work of His Spirit in us – it is the fruit of His Spirit rather than the fruit of our flesh life (Gal 5). But what we need comes “through our knowledge of Him” – knowing God better by hearing from Him, learning of Him in His Word, the Bible and letting His Spirit apply this to our lives.
Am I growing Spiritually?
Almost every child will recall the ‘height chart’ that their parents created for them on a wall of their home. It was a way to see your physical growth month on month or year on year, and to celebrate that growth. Although Spiritual Growth is even more important, strangely we don’t really check to see whether we are growing. Like those Hebrew believers, we can remain immature, mere ‘infants’ or ‘babies’. The Bible encourages us to examine ourselves, to look for Spiritual Growth. Having spiritual growth at the forefront of our daily walk with God is key to growing in Him.
To help you assess where you are, we have developed a questionnaire you can use. It starts with a brief Bible Study so that we start with a right understanding that we are to neither be proud of ‘scores’ nor defeated by apparent failure. This is simply a resource for you to use to get a sense of where God has been working and where we have been resisting His work. Use it if it is helpful.
Resources to help in Spiritual Growth
We have chosen some books and Bible Study guides that may be of help, and have grouped them according to the categories we used in the Spiritual Growth Self Evaluation. This list of resources will be regularly expanded, so keep coming back and looking.
Just click on a heading to reveal the books and resources under that heading…
