How to Grow Spiritually

Hello everyone. Today I would like to share with you about spiritual growth. It is actually a fairly elaborate topic, and I would need a lot of time to explain everything relating to it. I am only going to touch on some of the aspects, but I may do different recordings for different topics, and there are some recordings already relating to some of these components that I will link in this teaching. Have a look at the links, and then you can follow through to some of the other teachings.

So, spiritual growth. The obvious question is probably, do we really need to have spiritual growth, or is it fine to remain stagnant in one place? The Word of God is very clear on that.

“As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.”

1 Peter 2:2 (NKJV)

So there is an expectation. God created us for something. He put His life inside of us, and now He has an expectation that we can manifest that life in this earth and fulfil every purpose He has created us for.

We need to continue to grow in it. The fact that we became born again is not enough. We need to continue from there into everything God has destined for us, and that requires spiritual growth. As you have already seen from that verse, the way we grow spiritually is through the Word of God and through the Spirit of God. It also means that, depending on where we are in terms of our spiritual growth, God can communicate with us on a certain level of understanding. The more we grow, the more God can deal with us on a certain level.

In Hebrews 5 it explains this to us:

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

Hebrews 5:12-14 (NKJV)

So it starts out saying, desire the milk that you can grow thereby, but then Hebrews 5 explains that it is not enough just to desire the milk. You need to grow beyond that and actually desire solid food. When we start out, it is fine that we only have that basic desire for the Word, but then we need to grow into something more – specifically, becoming skilled in the word of righteousness, understanding who we are, what God has created us for, and that it is not just about me, but about manifesting His presence in this earth.

We grow into something more and more. The more we understand God, the more we understand the word of righteousness. We get skilled in that, we start living it, and we manifest Him. So God has an expectation as far as that is concerned. The whole of creation is crying out for the manifestation of the sons of God – those who have come to maturity in the Word of God. So there is an expectation, not just by way of knowledge, but by way of living as mature Christians. There is definitely an instruction from the Word that we should continue to grow.

So how do we do that? I am going to touch on a few things. Firstly, as far as I am concerned, for us to grow spiritually we need to understand it is a mindset. We have to have an expectation that as we continue to grow in the things of the Lord, things will change. It must be an expectation. If you embark on this journey – maybe you have only recently started it, you received the life of God inside of you, you became born again, and now you have this question, where to? How do I go about this?

We must have an expectation that when we spend time in the Word of God and start growing, things are going to look different in our lives and in the lives of those around us. So it starts with an expectation, and at the same time we must understand that spiritual growth, like our whole spiritual journey, is a journey of faith. We must continue to hold on to what the Word shows us is reality, and have an expectation that we are going to manifest that in this earth.

Jesus Himself prayed, “Let it be on earth as it is in heaven.” He said, “Father, let Your kingdom come. Let it be on earth as it is in heaven.” So we have an expectation of what we, as Christians, as the body of Christ, are going to manifest in this earth. But it still means that, while we hold on to that expectation, we still have to do it in faith.

We don’t always see the things we want to see. We don’t yet see the reality of the dominion of God in this earth. We don’t see it, but we must have a hope, a firm belief and expectation that we will see it, and we continue to live according to that reality. Remember, we stay in a broken world because of the sin of Adam and Eve and the separation that took place. We live in a dispensation where Satan is still active, still has authority over certain things, dominion and the ability to impact lives.

So it is a broken world. Many of the things we see happening around us are either from Satan or from the flesh – people acting from the flesh, putting themselves first – and that is the result of this broken world we stay in. But that doesn’t mean we must just accept it. By no means. We must have an expectation that we can manifest God’s presence on this earth and see everything that God has in His heart to manifest here. So we have an expectation, and that is why we grow spiritually more and more, to manifest more of Him in this earth – less of us, more of Him. But it means it is a journey, a growth journey that we are on.

Touching on that, one of the things that is also important is that for us to grow spiritually and be open for the Word and the Spirit to impact our lives, we must commit to study and understand the character of God. You can make a study in the New Testament on the character of God, to understand what is from God and what is not.

A lot of people are influenced by things that happen because of this broken world, things that happen because of the influence of Satan, things that happen because people operate and function in the flesh. Because they experience that, they say, “But this is God causing it.” You have to understand what is from God and what is not from God. You have to understand God’s character, and it is not a guessing game. We can use the Word of God, and that is why we need to grow in it – to get more and more of a conviction of what the Word of God says about Him.

It is obvious in some of the scriptures, where they display the character of God, that other things we attribute to God cannot come from Him, because they are not consistent with how His character is portrayed.

“God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”

1 John 1:5 (NKJV)

He is light, and that is why He is God. So if something is not light, if it is not life, if it is not love, it cannot be from God. We need to distinguish that, but we need to study it. Again, that is why it is called spiritual growth – we need to study these things. Don’t think we know everything yet, but we have a responsibility to dive into these things, spend time in them, and start learning, so that we can make progress. There are many scriptures in the Bible that expect us to make progress and move forward. So one of the critical aspects is to make a study of the character of God in the New Testament, and see typically what is from God and what is not from God.

As I have already said, the Word says He is light. You probably also know the well-known scripture in John 10:10, where Jesus said the thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but He has come to give life – life to the full, life in abundance, life that overflows. That shows us some of the character of what Jesus said. Remember, Jesus went around doing many things – it says He went around doing good, healing all those who were oppressed by Satan, for God was with Him.

When the disciples said, “Show us the Father,” Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” So if you study what Jesus did on earth, how He functioned, what He showed, you can see more of the character of God. Then you can start understanding: I don’t see any examples where Jesus made people sick. You don’t see examples of Jesus functioning in a way that is consistent with many of the things that today we would like to attribute to God and say it is God doing it. If Jesus didn’t do it, if Jesus didn’t show us that kind of character, we must realise it is not from God – it is not consistent with Him.

It is important for us to study that, to come to grips with understanding the character of God, so that we can grow spiritually quicker. Because if there are a lot of things happening in our life that are not good, that are not moving us forward, and if we continue to attribute those things to God, it is going to keep us back – it is going to prevent us from receiving a lot of the things God has in store for us and wants to enable in our hearts, that we may walk in it. So it is important. Understand the character of God, otherwise it is going to hold you back in your spiritual growth.

Then the third point I want to make regarding your spiritual growth is that you have to accept responsibility for it. You cannot abdicate that responsibility. You cannot give that responsibility away and say, “But the preacher, the pastor, the predikant, whoever – it’s not his responsibility.” We have to accept our own responsibility for our spiritual growth.

If you think you are dependent on another person for your spiritual growth, you are not going to go very far. We can’t live somebody else’s revelation. We can’t live somebody else’s relationship with God. We have to build our own relationship. We have to accept that responsibility and take it up, to grow spiritually.

If you accept that responsibility to grow spiritually, it flows into an important topic, and that is discipline. Some of us don’t like that word, but the reality is, if you want to move forward in anything, you need discipline. Spiritual growth is no exception. If you want to grow spiritually, you need to implement discipline in your life.

There is a saying that goes, “Knowledge doesn’t change people, processes do.” What that refers to is exactly this: you can receive all that information, and it can come to you – you can make many notes, and have stacks of notes, and sermons, and things you have listened to and attended – but how has it changed your life? What is different in your life because of that? Knowledge by itself is not going to change your life. Yes, knowledge is critical – in the Old Testament God said, “My people perish due to lack of knowledge.” Yes, we need to gain knowledge, but having knowledge is only the beginning, it is not the end.

Once you have that knowledge, with it comes the responsibility to say, “Okay, how do I implement it in my life?” That means there needs to be structure relating to it. Discipline goes hand-in-hand with structure. So if you want to grow spiritually, implement structure in your life regarding that. Start saying, “These are the time slots I am going to implement – time slots to spend in the Word, time to spend in fellowship and worship with the Lord, and to build a relationship.”

If you don’t implement those time slots in your day-to-day diary, don’t expect it to happen. There is no replacement for that. It might be a sensitive subject for many, but the truth is the truth: if you want to grow spiritually, you need to spend time with the Lord. There is no quick fix, no snapping your fingers and things just change. It doesn’t work that way. We need to spend time with the Lord. It is like building any relationship, even between two human beings – to build a relationship, you need to spend time. The things that make us grow spiritually are the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and our relationship with the Lord, and they take time. But it means we must make it a priority, and that may mean you have to change a few things in your life.

If you are really serious about wanting to grow spiritually, wanting to move forward in your relationship with the Lord, you are going to have to realise there are some things you need to get rid of in your life – things you have to cut out. Maybe it is not watching television, or sports, or whatever it is. I am not saying this from the perspective of religion, condemnation or a burden placed upon you. No, I am saying it is a choice.

I say this from the perspective of having done counselling for many years now. Many people come to me and one of the first things they say is, “I don’t hear the voice of the Lord, and I don’t feel as if I’m moving forward in my spiritual life.” But it is a direct reflection of the choices you make. Your life is a reflection of the choices you make.

If you really have a desire to grow spiritually and build your relationship with the Lord, it is a decision. That’s all it is. You implement discipline, time slots into your day, and you decide. What have you got to lose? What if I challenge you today: for one month, cut out television from your life. Just that. Cut out television for one month, and in that time you would have spent on television, spend it in the Word of God.

Take the Word of God, spend that time – maybe an hour, or two, or three hours a day that you would have spent on television – spend that in the Word of God, and I can guarantee you it is impossible for your life not to change. God looks at your heart. God has an expectation in terms of our interaction. God forces nothing on us. God responds to the desire in your heart to know Him.

The question is, is it about you, or is it about God? If you only have an expectation to interact with God because of what you need and want, you are only going to grow to a certain level. But if you start changing your focus and say, “God, it is all about You,” and you have a desire to spend time with Him, a desire for Him to reveal Himself to you because of your desire to know Him and manifest His purpose for you in this life, I can tell you your spiritual growth will be on a radically different level.

I have seen many times in the past – yes, it is great when people become born again and receive eternal life; yes, it is great when they are filled with the Holy Spirit and start experiencing the reality of that in their lives. But the most significant change comes the day somebody decides it is not about them, it is about God. The day you make that decision, everything in your life, and the reason for doing it, starts changing.

You might not do much different yet, but your focus and your purpose start changing. Even just in terms of your quiet time, spending time in the Word of God will start changing if you have that expectation – not, “I’m going to pray because I want God to answer something about a challenge I have,” but if you start spending time in the Word to get to know Him, His purpose and what He wants to say to you, it starts changing.

The amazing thing is this: when you start spending time with the Lord, spending time in the Word because of the desire you have to know Him, it becomes a pleasure and not a burden. He will start giving life to what you receive from the Word of God. He will start giving life to your thoughts. He will start putting desires in you. Maybe up to now it has been a burden for you – you have your daily piece that you read from the Word of God, and you read it, but it is religion, it is habit, there is no life in it.

But when you start saying, “God, I truly want to know You – it is not about me, it’s about You, Father,” when you have that desire and express it, and every day you say, “Lord, more of You. Show me more of You, Father. Enable more of You in me,” when you start having that desire that it is all about Him, you will start seeing how, every day, you will have more and more desire to spend time in the Word of God. It will become a pleasure – something that becomes the highlight of your day, that you cannot wait to spend time in the Word of God, to start experiencing that presence, that interaction, that communication, where the Lord starts showing you things and speaking to you. And then you can start functioning from that place, which is a totally different place in terms of spiritual growth than when it is all about me, myself and I.

I would love to speak more about that component, but the next component is: you need to be teachable. The things that change our lives are the Word of God, the Spirit of God, our relationship with God, and we need to be teachable. We need to be willing for people around us to have an influence on our life and impart knowledge into our lives.

In many years of counselling, people often come to me and, in an hour session, will speak for fifty-five of the sixty minutes, and then say, “Okay, so solve my problem.” Maybe not in those words, but that is the expectation. If you function by the Spirit of God – and I do it by the Spirit of God when I counsel – I don’t need somebody to explain their problem to me for an hour. The Holy Spirit will reveal it, and the Holy Spirit and the Word of God are the solution, not my intellectual ability. I don’t have to have an intellectual and cognitive understanding of what somebody’s problem is.

People need to learn that when you want somebody to assist you – whether in your interaction with a human being or even with God – the same principle applies. You need to allow time to listen and actually be willing to receive. It might sound harsh, but many people I have counselled in the past are not necessarily willing to change. They want their life to change, but they are not willing to change, not willing to do things differently, not willing to spend more time with the Lord. They just want a quick solution, a quick fix, the problem to be solved. And unfortunately there is also a group of people who don’t actually want the problem to disappear – they want to remain victims, to have something they can always complain about and share so people feel sorry for them.

So the point I wanted to make is that you have to be teachable, willing to listen. Jesus said He could only do what His Father showed Him. We don’t have to tell somebody else, or God, how big our problem is. We need to understand how big the solution is, and for that we need to be able to receive it. We need to listen, we need to see, we need to spend time with the Lord. So if you want to start growing, one of the components is to be teachable – willing to allow people to speak into your life, to minister to you, and to allow the Holy Spirit to minister. If you are not teachable, if you are not going to listen, you are not going to think differently, you are not going to do differently, and nothing in your life is actually going to change.

I am not saying allow anybody and everybody to speak into your life – most definitely not, because the Word of God says there are many false prophets and false preachers in the end times, and they will try to deceive and mislead many. The Bible says discern; you need to test every spirit, whether it is from the Lord. That is why it is important that we spend time with the Lord, to build a relationship, to grow spiritually, and to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us and through us, so that we are able to discern. When somebody wants to minister to us, when somebody wants to speak to us, we need to discern by the Spirit of God whether that is from God or not.

Don’t just allow anybody and everybody. You can test somebody who wants to speak into your life from the perspective of where the fruits are. The Word of God says a tree is known by its fruits. Have a look at somebody – many people love to have a platform, love to speak, promise to change everybody else’s life, yet they are not actually yielding the fruits and results of what they say they can do. So you can look at somebody’s life and see what it looks like around them. Even in the New Testament, the test for somebody to become an elder starts by saying, “Look at his family.” Is his children serving God? Are they loving God? What does their life look like? So before somebody speaks into your life and impacts it, have a look at the fruit – see what their life looks like, what their family looks like, what the people around them look like.

Have they been able to disciple many? Have they raised up many who are walking in their purpose today, fulfilling what God has created them for? So be teachable, but be selective in terms of who you allow to speak into your life.

Point number six that I want to make is to meditate on the Word of God. Just reading the Word of God is not enough. You can read a verse and look at it only from an intellectual perspective, in terms of what you have always heard – maybe you have heard that verse a hundred times, and it has lost its value to you.

If you want to grow from the Word of God, you need to slow down. You need to read the Word of God with intent and make time to do it. Don’t think that fifteen minutes a day, quickly reading and putting it down, is going to change something in your life. When you read the Word of God, have an expectation, an intent, that it is about a relationship with the living God.

It is the Holy Spirit who gives life to the Word of God. So even though this is the written Word of God, you still need that intimacy and presence of the Holy Spirit to give life to what is inside the Word, so that it can be activated in your spirit. When you read the Word of God, you need to meditate on it. You need to make it your own. It needs to come alive in your spirit – it is not just reading it, you need to give life to it.

“Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.”

1 Timothy 4:15 (NKJV)

Give yourself entirely to these things. Give yourself entirely to the Word. The example I used earlier – what if you cut out all television from your life and spend that time in the Word of God? I guarantee you, your relationship with God will be different. Even if you just do that for a month, see how everything in your life will start changing, and how you will have that desire to spend time with the Lord.

Then point number seven that I just want to touch on – I have a different teaching on that which you can look into – relates to the topic of strongholds in our minds: how we actually function in terms of our minds, what we think, and what we allow.

We need to realise that we often have many strongholds in our minds, beliefs and belief systems that are inconsistent with the Word of God. Because we maybe grew up in an environment where our traditions imparted these thought systems and belief systems – maybe even our parents, and the way we grew up and the environment – everything could have imparted belief systems and thoughts that we have embraced and still believe, and it might not be the truth. And because it is not the truth, but we hold on to it, it is preventing us from walking in the fullness of the truth God has prepared for us.

So it is important to realise there might be things you believe at the moment, which you think are good because you were taught them in your traditional church, that you will have to test against the Word of God. It is important that we apply the principle of testing every spirit in every environment we are in – even in your own church, you have to test it. You have to test what you believe, what the people around you believe. Is it consistent with the Word of God? In a lot of cases it might not be, and because of that, it is going to hold you back in your spiritual growth, because you are holding on to something that an organisation or a structure prescribed, and that thing the organisation prescribed has become an authority higher than the authority of the Word of God.

Or they apply a component of the Word of God in a certain way, and that belief system becomes the authority – and it might be the authority in your life. You have to go back to the Word of God as if you know nothing, and try to build what the Word of God says about a topic from that, forming that as your belief system. Then you will be able to walk in the truth.

Then number eight, a very important aspect, is the importance of relationships. We were not created to function on our own. We were meant to function within a faith community, in relationships within the body of Christ. We have been created to interact within the body of Christ, and that is why it is important that we don’t isolate ourselves.

Don’t isolate yourself on this journey you are on. You have to surround yourself with the right people – people who are spiritually mature, people who have your best interests at heart, and people to whom you can actually hold yourself accountable. Then you have a much better chance of success in terms of your spiritual growth.

It's not just a case of we do one hour a week together and we call it church. When you are on this journey that God has prepared us for and you become accountable, it's a 24-7, 365 thing. The way I would like to express it is it's doing life together. It's literally we become transparent, we become accountable. We often have something in our lifestyles that we have to unlearn.

We work everything in our life. We work towards becoming our own bosses and not being accountable. But yet in the body of Christ, we need to understand we are accountable. The Word says we have been bought at a price. I don't belong to myself anymore. I don't belong to myself. I belong to God, which means I belong to the body of Christ, which means I cannot do whatever I want whenever I want. I need to become accountable. Again, it's not something people like to hear, but that's the reality according to the Word of God.

I need to make myself accountable and say, I have people around me that I trust in terms of their spiritual insight and their spiritual maturity. And when I want to make major decisions in my life, I will pray about it. I will get a conviction, but then I will share it with my accountability group and say, pray with me. What do you experience about it? And unless I can come to a point where those whose opinions and spiritual insight I value around me come to that same place, I need to continue to spend time and hear from the Lord.

Why are people around me not hearing what I'm hearing? That's the way that you often protect yourself against making mistakes and wrong decisions and messing up in your life. And then it's a long journey to try and repair that. It's better to surround yourself with people where you will hold yourself accountable.

I think one of the reasons why it's difficult is for people to come to that place where they actually realise, when you become married, you actually realise that you give away certain rights in your life. That's the reality about getting married. You can't just do whatever you did before. Now you are married. Now you are accountable. And there are certain rights that you have given away. When you have come into the body of Christ, the Bible says you belong to God now. That means we have given away certain rights. When you have become part of the body of Christ, you need to understand God is first. The body of Christ is first. And there are some things in my life that I need to just make secondary.

I'm going to read you a scripture in 1 Corinthians 6:19.

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.”

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NKJV)

So we don't belong to ourself anymore. We belong to God. We belong to the body of Christ. And therefore, we need to make ourself accountable.

That's why I often say that there are many that are willing to make Jesus their Saviour. Once off and continuously, they've accepted Jesus as their Saviour. But then continuously, their lifestyle is just about Jesus, come and help. Jesus, come and help. Come solve this. Come solve this. Come solve this. It's all about me. But there are few that are willing to make Jesus Lord of their lives.

It's a totally different relationship when you make Jesus Lord of your life. Because then it's not about me, myself, and I and what I need. It's about God. It's about You, Lord Jesus. You are truly Lord. You are King. You are my boss. I belong to You. What is it that You expect from me? What is it that the body of Christ wants from me or needs from me? So there are things we need to change.

Maybe touching on that as well, in terms of from my experience, people that grow the quickest spiritually are those that start actually to move their focus towards other people. And their attitude becomes that of serving, of helping. The moment people move their mindset to how can I help others? How can I serve? How can I make a difference? Even if it's in a general environment where you function and there's an event that you get involved in – just being able to arrive early, to move the chairs, to help with the food and the tea and whatever. Just being there, being able and willing to serve. And the moment your focus starts moving towards other people, instead of what can I get out of this, your spiritual growth will just happen that much easier.

So yes, I rushed through this one. There's a lot that I want to cover, but some of it we'll cover in different topics, and I'll link one or two other teachings that tie in with this as well. But I think in essence, to summarise: spiritual growth is critical, but it is not a mystery. Spiritual growth is a decision. It is a commitment. It is discipline. And you need to make decisions in terms of making God priority in your life.

And then adjust things in your life in terms of your programme. Remove things that are in the way. Make time to spend time in the Word. Spend time in worship. Spend time with the Lord. And then you will see how you will start growing spiritually. And then don't try and do this on your own. Surround yourself with spiritually mature people that care about you, that can be on this journey with you. But then you need to be willing to make yourself accountable. Spend time with people whose desire is to activate you as that part, as that joint, for you to walk in your purpose with no other agenda.

I trust you received some useful insights from this in terms of your spiritual journey to grow. And I pray that God will continue to increase the desire in your heart to spend time in the Word, that He will increase the desire in your heart to spend time with Him. And maybe you say, but I still don't know where and how. Just surround yourself with the right people. Just start spending time in the Word. Just start reading. Even if it's just start reading from John and read Acts.

Spend time on every verse that you are reading, and allow the Holy Spirit, and express that desire. I have seen many of the people that have massive impact in the Kingdom of God today – you will see where they started. It was a cry to God. It was a desire. And then God responded to that. Not a cry of desperation, but a cry to say, God, I want more of You. I want to know more. I want to learn more. I want to be able to manifest more of You in this earth. If you express that desire, God will respond to that desire.

I trust you will have a blessed day. And watch this teaching again – there's a lot of information that you have to process again. And then I will chat to you soon.