Five Ways to Grow Spiritually

The Christian life is supposed to grow, deepen, and mature in Christ over time.

Yet, far too many believers have stalled in their spiritual lives and are unsure how to progress forward. In this replay of a webinar Nathan gave, he discusses five specific ways to grow spiritually and how you can thrive in Christ Jesus in this season of your life.

• Download the webinar notes
• Ellerslie Online – a “go at your own pace” online discipleship program that is available for a donation of any amount (registration is open from January 15 – February 29)
• Come to Colorado and join me and Ellerslie for an in-person discipleship program this upcoming summer or fall. You can learn more about our discipleship programs or sign up to enter to win one of our ten full-ride scholarships we are giving away (ends February 15, so sign up soon if you’re interested). You can learn more about the scholarship giveaway here.

Listen to or download the episode

Discipleship

• Matthew 28:18–20 – And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
  • we are not only called to make disciples but BE disciples
• Goal of Discipleship
  • To become like the one we follow
  • Matthew 11:28-30 – “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
    • Apprenticeship (blacksmith)
  • Ephesians 4:17–24 – Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way– if indeed you heard Him and were taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
  • Goal: to be Christlike, increasing in holiness, grow in godliness, being ever more conformed to the image of Christ
  • Ephesians 4:13 – … until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ …
  • Colossians 1:28– Him we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
• Discipleship (spiritual growth) is an endless pursuit
  • lifelong
  • you don’t “graduate” from being a disciple
  • should affect every area of our lives (thinking, attitude, actions, words, etc)
  • not a “Sunday” thing, nor an “everything but this area” thing
• Discipleship is continually and intentionally growing and being conformed to the image of Christ where He increases in preeminence
  • Colossians 1:18 – … so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
  • Colossians 1:18 (ESV) – … that in everything he might be preeminent.

5 Ways to Grow Spiritually

1. Know God

• we have to know the one to whom we are growing up into 
• trust (believe) and faith are easier when you know the one you’re trusting
• intimacy over academics
• How do we know God?
  • Psalm 46:10 – Be still, and know that I am God …
  • be still: to cease from labour, to loiter, be free from labor, to give one’s self to a thing, unoccupied; sink, relax, let go
• We live in a distracted culture … 
  • Americans watch 6-8 hours of entertainment a day
  • “People tapped, swiped and clicked a whopping 2,617 times each day, on average. For the heaviest users—the top 10%—average interactions doubled to 5,427 touches a day. Per year, that’s nearly 1 million touches on average—and 2 million for the less restrained among us.” *
• A.W. Tozer – “It is well that we accept the hard truth now: the man who would know God must give time to Him! He must count no time wasted, which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance.” **
• Get to know God’s character, nature, passions, mindset 
  • Names of God [Behold Our God series]
  • Pray and ask that God will give you a greater hunger and passion for Him
  • Intimacy over information
  • Luke 11:9–13 – “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. But what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or, if his son asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

2. Know God’s Word

• best way to know the heart, character, and nature of our God is getting into His Word
• read the Bible for breadth, study the Bible for depth
• Saturation concept (live in the Word)
• Pray and ask that God would give you wisdom and insight into Himself
  • Ephesians 1:17–19* – … [I pray] that you would give me the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the full knowledge of You, so that the eyes of my heart, having been enlightened, will know what is the hope of Your calling, what are the riches of the glory of Your inheritance, and what is the surpassing greatness of Your power toward us who believe according to the working of the might of Your strength …
• Read, study, meditate, memorize … be in the Word
  • Psalm 119:9, 11 – How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. … Your word I have treasured [hidden] in my heart, that I may not sin against You.
  • David: “I meditate on Your Word day and night”

3. Obey Him

• Matthew 28:19–20 – “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep [obey, follow, observe] all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
• John 15:10 – “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
• 1 John 2:5 – … but whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him …
• it is nearly impossible to progress spiritually if we are unwilling to obey what God has already said in the past
• Obedience requires Spirit-empowerment, not self-effort
  • Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
  • Colossians 3:3–4 – For you died and your life has been hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.
  • 1 John 4:9– By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

4. Reckoning the Truth … Rehearse the Basics

• Romans 6:11-14 – Even so consider [reckon] yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
• Hold fast to the truth of Scripture and what God says about your new position IN Christ
  • Dead to sin and alive IN Christ
  • New creation in Christ
  • More than conquerors
  • Seated IN Christ
  • He is my victory and triumph

5. Use resources and tools to speed up the growth process

• classic books
  • Andrew Murray, A.W. Tozer, Charles Spurgeon, etc.
  • Christian biographies (Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, C.T. Studd, Darlene Diebler Rose, Corrie ten Boom, etc.)
• podcasts
  • Bravehearted Voices (classic sermons)
  • Daily Thunder (with Eric Ludy and Nathan Johnson)
  • Set Apart (for women with Leslie Ludy)
  • Deeper Christian (with Nathan Johnson)
  • Find Christ-centered, Bible-based, Gospel-focused podcasts to listen to
• set apart seasons to intentionally focus and grow in Christ
  • Ellerslie Online
  • Ellerslie Discipleship Training
    • scholarship giveaway available through Feb 15

Final Encouragement

2 Peter 1:3-4 – … seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Jude 1:24-25 – Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

• Link for webinar notes

FOOTNOTES
* https://dscout.com/people-nerds/mobile-touches#:~:text=People%20tapped%2C%20swiped%20and%20clicked,the%20less%20restrained%20among%20us (accessed February 6, 2024)
** Aiden Wilson Tozer, God’s Pursuit of Man [The Divine Conquest] (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 2007), 5.

Join the Conversation

Question: How are you intentionally growing spiritually in this season?