Starting True Spiritual Growth
What is the core reason that spiritual growth doesn’t seem to be happening in most Christians today? Going from church to church all across Americathere seems to be little of any true interest in spiritual growth. It seems that most are heavily concerned with their material well being and their ability to have the enjoyment they greatly desire. They don’t see the value of a life that is fully dedicated to God. It is seen as an unwelcome extremism. Those that give their all to the service of God are seen as weird or severely lacking common sense. Yet the Word of God tells us that it is the way to true joy, happiness, and peace. So what is it that keeps the large majority of Christians from yielding their lives to the Savior?
Several reasons come to mind, but three areas seem to cover the majority of cases. These three areas are 1) professing a Christianity that is not actually possessed, 2) a failure of leadership to teach and exemplify true spiritual living, and 3) a failure to start where spiritual growth truly begins.
First of all then, is the professing Christian a possessing Christian? When an unbeliever first becomes a child of God through salvation they begin a new life. Their old life is replaced by a new life. Paul the apostle tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” What use to be the person before salvation has passed away or died. A new creation has been accomplished in them and they are a new person. All has been made new. There is an immediate sense of joy, happiness, and peace that floods the soul of the person that has come to salvation in Christ Jesus.
As a young man of 14 years, the moment that God the Holy Spirit entered my being and brought me salvation in Jesus I was filled with joy, happiness, and peace. I was excited to the point of excitedly telling my dad that I was saved. I knew that I was saved. A person that has just come to salvation in Christ Jesus will be joyous over what has occurred. The lack of that joy brings a serious question as to whether they have truly been saved. They may have been led to go through a religious experience of saying a prayer in exchange for getting a ticket to heaven without actually receiving Jesus. Much care is needed here. If the person that has said such a prayer, called the sinner’s prayer, has done this religious act to obtain a ticket to heaven and avoid hell and now trust their prayer to be what will guarantee them a home in heaven, then they are not saved. They have been led to a false assurance of heaven based on a religious act. Unfortunately, most evangelical churches today are full of those that have this kind of profession and lack true salvation.
Salvation requires that a person put their trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary and His resurrection from the dead as their only hope of heaven. They must repent of their sinful lifestyle and invite the Lord Jesus Christ into their being. At Pentecost when the Jews asked Peter what to do he replied, “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:38. The first step was repentance. They were instructed of their need to turn away from their life of sin and accept Jesus’ full payment for their sin. Then they were to evidence this change in their life by being baptized (immersed). This baptism was a symbol of their placing their trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross and His resurrection as full payment for their sin. No set of ‘magical’ words is ever going to bring salvation to anyone. The heart of the individual must realize their condition as a sinner and their need for the substitutionary work of the Savior. Then they must complete the act of yielding to that finished work of the Savior as full payment for their sin.
Paul considered this a most serious consideration to the point that he gives warning in 1 Corinthians 11:26-29 saying, “For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death till he comes. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” Paul calls the act of taking communion without truly being saved and in right relationship with the Savior as a very dangerous act. Paul further states, “Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates?” 2 Corinthians 13:5. Paul strongly prods them to examine themselves to see if they are indeed saved. Do they have Jesus Christ in them or not?
There are very clear indicators as to whether a person has truly been saved or not. When we accept God’s invitation to be saved the Holy Spirit comes inside of us immediately and we are sealed. Ephesians 1:13reads, “In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.” The presence of the Holy Spirit within us provides two things that tell us we are saved. Some of us actually notice the Holy Spirit coming inside of us when we are saved. Not all of us notice this, but all of us after getting saved will be convicted by the Holy Spirit when we sin. This did not happen to us prior to getting saved. Before we came to Jesus to get saved, we could commit sin and have no problems with it. It was our natural way of living. Once we are saved we can no longer sin and not be bothered by it. After salvation the Holy Spirit will convict us of having done wrong when we sin. If the feeling of conviction hits us when we sin, then we can be assured that we did get saved. If we are not bothered by our sinful lifestyle then we are not saved.
There is more. In order for us to accept Jesus as Savior the Holy Spirit must draw us to the need to get saved. The Word of God tells us, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God.”Romans 3:10-11. We do not desire nor seek to have our sins forgiven. The Holy Spirit must bring our need to our attention. Then and only then can we know that we must ask Jesus to save us. Jesus in John 6:44 said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him.” God the Father must use the Holy Spirit to draw us to Jesus. Before God draws us we have no interest in coming to Jesus for salvation. The fact that we are concerned about being saved is direct proof that God has drawn us.
Again, when we get saved we are changed and are a new person in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17tells us, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” We are a new creature created in Christ Jesus when we get saved. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” When we get saved we will have an inward desire to do those things that please God. We will not want to sin. This does not happen in us if we are not saved. If we desire to please God, then we have been saved. If our desires are to do sinful things and we can do them without being bothered by them, then we are not saved.
Having accepted Jesus as our Savior, we will then have a desire to see others get saved. This is part of our new found desire to do the things that please God. Also, we have come to believe that we must get saved to get to heaven. If we desire that others would get saved, we are saved. Those who are not saved will never be concerned for others. If we are not saved, the only person we will be concerned about is ourselves. There are a few other things that need to be said.
Some think that it is necessary to spend much time agonizing over our sinful state before we can get God to save us. This is a lie. If we desire to get saved, the very moment we ask God to save us we are saved. Salvation occurs instantly. Also, some think we need to have some sort of emotional experience. This is also false. Some of us will have an emotional experience as a result of getting saved and some of us will not. An emotional experience is not necessary to get saved. God does the saving, not us. There are also no necessary feelings that we need to have. We are each different individuals, some of us have more feelings than others. Some of us will have much feeling and others will have none or very little. No special feelings are necessary to get saved. Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If we have sincerely called on the Lord Jesus to save us, we are saved. God cannot lie and He will not lie. Also, Jesus said in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.” Jesus guarantees that anyone who comes to Him to get saved will be saved. We must put our trust in Jesus, and not some other person or thing.
Putting our trust in some speaker or some church will not save us. Our trust must be put in the finished work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. Only faith in Jesus will give us salvation. 1 Timothy 2:5 explains, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Also in Acts 4:12 Peters tells the Jewish leaders about Jesus that, “Neither is their salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Our trust must be in Jesus and Jesus only. If our trust is in Jesus we are saved and there are some other things we need to know.
After we get saved, the devil wants very badly to get us to doubt our salvation. Let’s look at some truths that we can be assured of. First, the type of life that Jesus gives us is eternal life. Jesus tells us in John 3:15-16, “That whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Once we are saved we have everlasting life. This means that we cannot perish or die. If we were to die then our life would not be everlasting. When we leave this world we will be with Jesus forever. Jesus also tells us in John 10:27-29, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” Once we are saved Jesus has His hand around us and God the Father has His hand around us. There is no one that can remove us from the hand of God, including ourselves. No human being or any other being can remove us from the hand of God. There are some more truths like this.
When we accept Jesus as our Savior we become a child of God. We are born immediately into God’s family. John 1:12reads, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” Also Romans 8:14-16 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” When we get saved we gain adoption into the family of God. We are children of God. God the Father is our Father. Family is something that never changes. When we are born we are the child of our parents. No matter what we do we will always have the same parents. Once we become children of God we will always be God’s child. There is still more.
When we get saved we are baptized or immersed into the body of Jesus. In Romans 6:4-5 we learn, “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” We become a part of Jesus when we are saved. In order for us to lose our salvation Jesus would have to die again. Jesus is God. He is never going to die. Therefore, we also will never die. When we leave this world we will be with Him forever. Finally we will eventually receive a new body that will never die that will be just like Jesus. In I John 3:2 we read, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” The only way that we would ever be able to look upon the infinite glory of Jesus is to become just like Him. Just as Jesus body will never die so also our new body will never die. With all of these guarantees we can be certain that we will never lose our salvation. Our salvation is totally dependent upon the Savior and in zero dependence on us. All praises be to God for what He has done for us.
Once the believer is certain they are not just professing salvation but are actually possessing salvation they will now need a leader that can guide them in their new life. If after salvation the believer has joined a Bible believing church, they along with all that are in that church will look to their leader, the pastor, for guidance in their new life. If the pastor of that church does not know how to guide his congregation in their walk with the Savior, the congregation will most likely fail to achieve true spiritual growth. This is the second reason believers do not attain true spiritual growth. Where does true spiritual growth begin after salvation?
God dearly loves us and is not going to ever force us, making robots out of us. God wants us to turn our lives over to Him for His guidance and control. This is where true spiritual growth begins. Romans 12:1-2 tells us, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Paul tells us that the believer needs to surrender their bodies as a living sacrifice to God and that is our reasonableservice. Not yielding ourselves to God is the third reason most Christians never see true spiritual growth. This is where the real battle in the Christian life begins. The new believer is still a baby in Christ. They have just been saved and don’t understand much at all about the Word of God and what it is that God requires of them. This is about making God the Lord of their life. Without this step the newborn believer will remain a newborn believer.
Paul received Christ as Savior on the Damascus road. Acts 9:3-6 reads, “As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground and hear a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So he, trembling and astonished, said, ‘Lord, what do You want me to do?’” Paul’s experience was a very dramatic one. Yet, as soon as Paul (then called Saul) accepted Jesus as Savior he surrendered immediately to Him calling Him Lord. Accepting Christ as Lord is a decision that is made just like getting saved. It is not dependent on a lot of Bible knowledge. It is simply a matter of placing full trust in the Savior. This can and should be done at the same time a person receives Christ as Savior.
Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice means that we give to God full control over each and every part of our lives. We give God full control of what we do each day and each moment of each day. We give God full control of what we purchase at the store and what we do with every penny that God gives us to utilize. We give God full control of all of our talents and abilities. We give God full control over where we live and what we do in life. In short, we are now stewards of all these things for God. God is the full owner of all of these things and our job is to do with them as He directs. This is a massive step for a new believer, or for that matter any believer, to undertake. Yielding to God full control of everything we do and everything we possess and everything we are and accepting the role of being God’s steward over these things is a difficult thing to understand and do. It must be understood, however, that this is the best decision that any believer can ever make. God knows all our needs, has a perfect plan for our life, and wants to bring full happiness, joy, and peace into our lives. This is only possible by fulfilling this request and submitting all to God.
God does not expect us to have the power to accomplish any of this. God merely wants us to make the decision to give Him full control. It is God that provides the ability for us to complete this. We do not have in our flesh the ability to accomplish any of this. Jesus told His disciples this in John 15:5 with, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” It is not possible for the believer to accomplish anything for God in and of their own strength. Our bodies are nothing but filthy rags being filled to the full with sin. Paul states in Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.” This is the apostle Paul, perhaps the most disciplined Christian that ever lived, and he simply found that inside him there was nothing but sin. He could not find any way to produce anything good out of what was within him. Just as Jesus said, there is no way we can do anything for God in and of ourselves. We must allow Jesus to work within and through us.
Further, true happiness, joy, and peace can only be found in a life that is fully surrendered to God. So long as we remain in full control of ourselves we will be miserable. Things will not work. Satan will have a hay day with us because we simply do not have the ability to defeat such a powerful enemy in and of ourselves. Even Michael the archangel turned to God when confronted by the devil. Jude tells us in Jude 9, “Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” Michael the archangel did not have the power to defeat Satan and asked God to step in. We don’t even have a smidgen of the power of Michael the archangel and it is pure foolishness on our part to try to have victory in our life over sin, the flesh, the world, and the devil. We need God’s help! For God to help, we must allow Him to help. God helps us when we submit to His control and authority. It’s important that this be done at the very same time that the believer accepts Jesus as Savior. Without accepting Jesus as Lord of their life, they will have great difficulty in the flesh and simply add to the number of carnal Christians that are in the church today.
The believer enters a spiritual war the moment that they accept Jesus as Savior. This war is not against other flesh, it’s against spiritual enemies. In Ephesians 6:12 Paul explains, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” These enemies are the world, the flesh, and the devil and his hordes of fallen angels. The only source of power that can enable the believer to have victory over this wickedness is Jesus. When the believer is fully surrendered to Jesus as Lord, the Holy Spirit enables the believer to have victory through the Word of God and prayer.
Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:2, “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” The Word of God is the very source of spiritual nutriment. Not only must it be sought out on a daily basis, but it must be thoroughly absorbed and obeyed. Psalm 119:11 tells us, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to bring about growth in the believer and enable the believer to live a life that pleases God. Communication is a two way street, however. Just as the believer has a great need to spend much time in the Word of God, they must also continuously be in communication with God.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 admonishes with, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Rejoicing can only happen when the believer is fully surrendered to the Savior. To pray without ceasing means that the believer is constantly in the presence of the Savior as they go throughout their day. They are not constantly talking to God, but their heart is constantly attuned to God and ready to request aid when it is needed. Also, when the believer gives God thanks for each thing God does for them throughout the day it evidences that they are in constant communion with God. As the believer yields their every moment to the Savior and is obedient to the Word of God they enjoy the happiness, joy, and peace of an intimate relationship with God. Yielding everything to God is the only path that is reasonable for the believer. Have you yielded your all to God? If not, why not say goodbye to the sorrows of trying to make it on your own, and submit to God’s Lordship and enjoy His continual fellowship. God bless!