Principles to Grow Stronger in Spiritual Life
The Secret To Success
We grow stronger by diligently increasing in our knowledge of
God's word, which we apply to our lives (Rom. 1:16; 1 Th. 2:13; 2
Pet. 1:5-8).
The challenge of
these days, when times are not hospitable to spiritual growth, is how to nurture,
feed, heal, restore, and renew the soul. Here are 21 practical suggestions for
building a stronger spiritual life.
Because we live in a culture that increasingly leans toward commercialism, materialism, and secularism, it is not always easy to keep the soul nourished.
The few principles to grow stronger in spiritual life
Be a river, not a swamp.
The Bible says: “Rivers of living water will flow from the heart of those who believe in me” (John 7:38, margin).* Remember, it is the mountain stream that carries fresh, life-giving water because it flows out. However, the swamp is stagnant and life-devouring. A swamp collects and retains water that comes its way. Don’t be the kind of person who seeks to accumulate much before allowing a little to flow through.
As Christians we are to let blessings flow through us and on to others. When we hoard and dam the blessings in our lives we are in danger of becoming spiritually stagnant, emotionally detached, and intellectually cynical. Resolve to break up the dam and let blessings flow like a river. The freshness is in the flow.
Identify blessings.
Too often we go through life oblivious to the good that comes flowing into our lives. Try this spiritual exercise for one week: At the end of the first day, identify a blessing that came to you from a family member. At the end of the second day, a blessing from a neighbor. Third day, from a friend. Fourth day, from a work colleague. Fifth day, from a stranger. Sixth day, from a child. On the seventh day, a blessing that came from an “enemy.”
Be like Moses-speak words of blessing.
One of the most beautiful and compassionate
passages in the Bible contains these words of blessing pronounced by Moses:
May the Lord bless
you and protect you.
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace
(Numbers 6:24-26).
Get creative with language, and speak words that will uplift, encourage,
hearten, and bless other people. As you build them up, your own spirit will get
stronger.
Nurture a shared prayer life.
Increase the amount of time you spend in prayer by
sharing in prayer with others. Some ways to do this include:
Letting friends know
you are always available for prayer.
Attending regularly held prayer groups.
Participating in a prayer chain.
Take a step of faith.
Spiritual growth means taking a leap of faith from time to time. Rather
than trying to get everything in place before you start something important,
why not follow God’s leading and allow the plan to evolve? This means taking a
step of faith and trusting God to provide what may be needed for success.
Restore someone’s faith.
Today, make time to heal a wounded heart, to extend
kindness to someone who really needs a friend, or to help gather up pieces of a
broken dream. Today, do whatever you can to radiate God’s unconditional love.
Be a grateful person.
Start every day with a morning prayer of gratitude to God for the gift
of a new day. Do this even if the day ahead appears ominous. Conclude every day
with an evening prayer of gratitude to God for the gift of the preceding hours.
Do this even if you’ve had a very tough day.
Share the journey.
Hook up with one other person who is seeking to
grow spiritually. Agree to meet once a week for a period of time to study and
reflect on spiritual matters. A friend of mine, who is a busy executive in
Toronto, Ontario, met for six months with another man to do Bible study. “No
matter how hectic our schedules, we always met each week during our lunch hour
at a downtown church that kindly provided us with a room for our meeting. Those
were good months when a lot of spiritual growth took place,” he says.
Serve.
Look for ways to serve the community, especially
tasks that promise no reward, such as picking up litter on the streets. Read
and reflect on the action of Jesus in John 13:1-5.
Cultivate a little solitude.
“Solitude makes us tougher toward ourselves and tenderer toward others;
in both ways it improves our character,” noted philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche. Spend some time away from the crowd and the noise of life. Set aside
a few minutes to be alone-just you and God. In quietness we turn our minds away
from the problems of life and fix our thoughts on the mind of God.
Fast and pray.
Prayer linked with fasting was often done by people in the Bible. Ezra
8:23 reports: “So we fasted and earnestly prayed that our God would take care
of us, and he heard our prayer.” The next time you are asked to pray urgently
for someone in difficulty, consider combining your praying with some fasting.
Turn worries over to God.
This is a clear teaching of Scripture: “Give your
burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you” (Psalm 55:22). Do this each
time a worry crops up.
Spread love wherever you go.
That is the advice of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who advised: “Spread
love everywhere you go: First of all in your own house. . . . Let no one ever
come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of
God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your
smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”
Keep your priorities straight.
Know what is ultimately important and what is not.
Consider the words of former President George Bush: “I am blessed with a close
and wonderful family, and I want to spend the rest of my life letting them know
how much I love them and appreciate them,” he said. “One of my most important accomplishments,
one I am still working on, is to be a huge success in the grandfather business.
I would like to be remembered for integrity, service, and family.”
Strive for excellence.
The Bible tells us: “Whatever you do, do well” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). Be
the best that you can be at whatever station in life God has placed you.
Use it or lose it.
God has generously endowed each of us with unique
gifts and talents. Make use of them or you will run the risk of losing them.
“Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know,
and you shall attain to higher knowledge,” noted ninteenth-century poet Sir
Edwin Arnold.
Meditate on Scripture.
The Bible is loaded with verses of comfort, encouragement, and wisdom.
Make it a habit to read and study your Bible in a regular, disciplined way.
Highlight verses that speak to you. Meditate on those words. Memorize some of
the passages so you can recall them from memory at a future time.
Be reliable.
Do what you say you will do-whether it’s convenient
or not. Follow through on all of your commitments, large and small. By your
actions, show others you are a person who can be trusted and counted upon.
Ask God to make you a blessing today.
A great way to grow in wonder and amazement is by asking God to turn
your life into a blessing. Do this each morning before resuming your daily
activities. Offer a short, simple prayer like this one: “Dear God, on this day
make my life a blessing to someone, somewhere.” Then pay close attention to every
person you encounter during the day, as God will honor your prayer, sometimes
in surprising ways.
Spend time in nature.
This was something done by the psalm writers, and
they gleaned spiri-tual lessons from their time in nature. “The heavens tell of
the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship” (Psalm 19:1).
“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers-the moon and the
stars you have set in place-what are mortals that you should think of us, mere
humans that you should care for us?” (Psalm 8:3,4). “Mountains rose and valleys
sank to the levels you decreed. Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so
they would never again cover the earth” (Psalm 104:8, 9).
Exercise your power of choice.
No matter what happens to you, you always have the
freedom to choose. You can select joy over despair. You can select love over
hate. You can select forgiveness over revenge. You can select growth over
stagnation. Remember that a crisis can evoke the best in us or the worst in us.
The choice is ours!
We'll never reach a
point in life where we think we have all the strength we need. We always want
to be stronger, to serve God better every day.
In this article, I want to remind you how we grow stronger in
the Lord, so you can serve God to the best of your ability.
Assemble With The Saints
The purpose of our assembly is to worship God, with
the result of growing stronger. Paul says of our assembly, "and let us
consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds . . . encouraging
one another" (Heb. 10:24-25).
He emphasizes the
importance of making our assembling a top priority in life, saying, "not
forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging
one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near" (Heb. 10:25).
If we assemble with
the saints, participating in the things God commands when we assemble, we'll
grow stronger every time. But if we neglect the assembly, by not attending or
not engaging our minds, we'll spiritually die.
Paul tells us that people who neglect to partake of
the Lord's Supper as God commands, die spiritually. He says, "whoever eats
the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty
of the body and the blood of the Lord. . . . For he who eats and drinks, eats and
drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this
reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep" (1 Cor.
11:27-30).
If we diligently assemble with the saints, doing
the things God commands, fully engaged in our spirits, we'll grow stronger. But
if we neglect the assembly, we'll grow weaker and weaker till we spiritually
die.
Increase In The Knowledge of
God
God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). This "knowledge" (epignosis)
comes from conforming one's self to God's word, and results in spiritual
maturity (2 Pet. 1:2-11).
Hence Paul's prayer for the saints was to be filled with the
knowledge of God's will, resulting in strength with all power, according to
God's glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience.
Thereby, we lay aside the old man and put on the new man who is renewed to a
true knowledge according to the image of the Christ (Col. 1:9-11; 3:9-10).
We grow stronger by diligently increasing in our knowledge of
God's word, which we apply to our lives (Rom. 1:16; 1 Th. 2:13; 2
Pet. 1:5-8).
Pray For Spiritual Strength
Jesus teaches us to pray for the things we need, which
certainly includes spiritual strength. He tells us to ask and knock and seek,
promising that our prayers will be answered, that we will find, and that doors
will be opened (Matt. 7:7-11)!
In like manner, Peter sets forth this principle from Psalms
34, saying, "For, 'The one who desires life, to love and see good days,
must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. . . . For the
eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears attend to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil'" (1 Pet. 3:10-12).
Furthermore, Paul teaches us to pray as we put on God's
armor, also praying for the strength of our brethren, while asking Christians
to pray for us (Eph. 6:10-20).
We can't expect God to strengthen us if we're not assembling
with the saints and increasing in knowledge through His word. But if we are,
it's very appropriate to pray for strength, confident God will answer our
prayers as His children.
Social Fellowship
Social fellowship with brethren is a personal work we engage
in as Christians. From the beginning of the church, Christians have interacted
socially to encourage one another, "breaking bread from house to house, .
. . taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart"(Acts
2:46).
Paul shows us that we're refreshed by the social fellowship
we have with Christians.
- Onesiphorus often
refreshed Paul because he was not ashamed of his chains. When he was in
Rome, Onesiphorus eagerly searched for Paul and found him (2 Tim. 1:16-17).
- Paul was confident
Philemon would grant his personal request. As a result, Paul was refreshed
in his spirit (Ph'm. 1:20).
When we interact socially, our spirits are refreshed. We
encourage one another as we spend time together, working and recreating,
talking about spiritual things, and helping one another.
Summary
We'll never reach a point in
life where we think we have all the strength we need. We always want to be
stronger, to serve God better every day.
Are you doing the things God
commands, to become stronger?
What can you change in your
life, to become even stronger --- strengthened with all power, according to
God's glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience?
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