Three Ways to Accelerate Your Spiritual Growth
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So, everything is going great! You are sailing right along. Your life is good, your family is good, your job is good – everything’s good! You may not be thinking about spiritual growth during this time. But this is a prime time for that very thing.
But there is great danger! We just don’t know when the next crisis could hit. In fact, during good days, we could be in great danger spiritually.
Three Dangers That Occur When Things Are Good
- It becomes easy to depend upon ourselves. When things are good, we begin to forget about God and his many blessings. It can be easy to take these things for granted and to rely on our own resources and strength.
- It is very easy to become lazy and complacent. We have a tendency to let our spiritual disciplines slip. We miss church a few times. It’s easy to forget to pray and read our Bibles.
- It is very easy to drift in this situation. Drifting is an ever-present danger. You can identify drift and overcome it with some help.
When we continue to move along this course, eventually, we will find that we have moved away from God and when the crisis hits, we have few resources to deal with it! In fact, we will experience, not spiritual growth, but spiritual atrophy.
Three Things to Focus on When Everything is Good
One – Stay strong with your spiritual disciplines:
- Make sure you read your Bible every day. Stay focused on God’s Word for your life. Don’t think you can go without for even one day.
- Make sure that you pray every day. Spend time in devoted prayer so you can continue to grow and don’t forget the essentials of prayer.
- Work extra hard to be in church every week. Now is truly a wonderful time to worship and praise God. Your radiance may be just what someone else needs!
- Strengthen the relationships you have with other followers of Jesus. Grow strong in fellowship during the good days. Remember, that when bad days come, you will need these relationships more than ever!
Two – Add new spiritual disciplines:
- Fasting is a discipline that is hard to get into. But fasting is a discipline that helps us reflect on God’s grace and goodness. It might be easier to add this discipline when things are going well.
- Silence is a discipline that makes it easier to hear the voice of God. Finding a quiet place, or just turning off the noise of the world are valuable to growing spiritually.
- Solitude. Being alone with God is powerful and renewing. It is a reminder that even when you are alone, you’re not alone and that you need God all the time.
Three – Change some things up:
- Start a new Bible reading program. I have found that when things are going well, it’s easy for our times with God to grow stale. So, I usually start a new Bible reading program. I read more or I read differently. There are a lot of Bible reading programs available. I will gladly give you personal guidance if you’d like.
- Get more intense in your Bible study. There’s nothing like going deep into God’s word.
- Get a new Bible. This is a great way to rejuvenate your Bible reading. A new Bible is very motivational in helping us read and study.
What Should You do Right Now?
If things are going well:
Grab one or two of the suggestions above and do them. Your spiritual growth will truly accelerate as you do these things.
Pass this post on to others so you can help them as well. This simple act of helping others follow Jesus always makes you stronger spiritually!
If things are not going well:
Hang on! Here are some things you can read to encourage you:
bible reading fasting fellowship prayer silence solitude spiritual growth
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