How Do I Grow As a Christian?
By Matt Brown
I get asked for spiritual advice almost daily.
It is a great joy to guide people how to grow as a Christian, and how to grow nearer to Christ.
One of the most common questions I am asked lately is "how do I grow as a Christian?" from people who feel they are stuck spiritually, or growing at a painfully slow pace.
Paul Tripp recently shared on the ChurchLeaders podcast that “Most Christians feel comfortable with their past salvation in that they received Christ, and their future salvation in that they will go to heaven one day, but they struggle with how to walk out their salvation in the present.”
Growth as a Christian is a common struggle for all of us, because it often looks different than we expect or hope.
Thankfully, I have come across some incredible resources filled with much biblical wisdom on how to grow as a Christian, that have helped immensely, and given me a greater understanding of this process.
Here are 6 powerful truths about what spiritual growth looks like for a Christian, and then 5 more simple, practical, Biblical steps you can take to see spiritual growth in your life:
1. We will never be perfect in this life.
If anyone had an opportunity to say how far they had come in their Christian growth, it was the Apostle James. He was known in Church history as "camel knees" for how fervently he prayed. Yet, James admits "we all stumble in many ways." (James 3:2)
One of the truths about holiness is the more you become painfully aware of your failings, the more you are actually growing. Self righteousness and feeling that you are "good" is actually a bad thing. (see 1 John 1:8; Luke 18:9-14) The nearer you draw to the Lord, the more you see His perfection, and your imperfections. (see Isaiah 6:1-8) As we grow as a Christian, we will become more aware of our sin than we previously noticed.
Even as Christians, who are called to grow toward perfection in Christ, we will never be perfect in this life. Far from it.
There is not a day of our Christian lives where we will not be needy for the gospel.
Accept this reality, and continue growing as a Christian from this place of acceptance because of Christ's work on the cross on your behalf.
2. Spiritual growth is often hard to see up close.
When we look back over the years, we see how God has been working in us, but it can often feel as if in our day-to-day lives we are not growing at all. We wonder how long we will struggle with the same things, and why we can't seem to move past baby steps in our Christian growth.
I remember when we were young, going to our extended relative camping trip, and seeing one of our cousins. So much had changed in a year - he was taller, looked much older, and his voice had completely changed, and gotten deeper. We were very surprised at how much he had changed, but he and his family didn't understand our surprise. They had seen his change in minutia. We were much more able to notice the change because we hadn't been with him for a year.
This is how Christian growth can sometimes feel. But as we look back over the years, we can truly say - "I'm not who I want to be, but thank God, I'm nowhere who I used to be."
When Christ comes into our lives we become a "new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17) - He brings us "from death to life" (Ephesians 2:5), and yet we are still in this life - in "this body of death" (Romans 7:24) and we will always have the need to continually lay down our sin and selfishness daily at the foot of the cross. (Luke 9:23)
Lane Adams shares in his book "The Incredible Patience of God" how even as a Pastor, he felt painfully aware of his weakness and lack of growth. His book, originally titled "Why Am I Taking So Long to Get Better" explains the struggle we all have with the slowness of our growth in Christ. We do grow in our faith, but often not at the speed we expect or hope. This is normal.
3. We don't put our faith in our growth, but in the gospel.
We shouldn't rest our faith on our Christian growth, but on the gospel alone.
Yes, we want to grow as Christians.
Yes, God has called us to grow as Christians.
Yes, God want to see us walk in freedom, and protected from the vices of sin and selfishness.
Yes, God is working in us and helping us to follow Him - more than we know.
But still the fact remains, that we are not saved by grace, and then keep our salvation by our works. No, we are saved by grace, and then empowered by God to grow, but our salvation always rests in God's mercy and grace alone. We don't work for our salvation, we work from our salvation. It's all because of Jesus. (See Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 3:5)
4. God is always continuing His work in us, to help us grow as a Christian.
God is often doing far more than we realize in our growth. He wants us to follow Him, more than we want to. He is at work in our lives to enable and empower us to trust and obey Him.
We have a part to play, but God is playing the most important part.
The Bible says, "I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns" (Philippians 1:6)
So always remember that you are not only working to follow closely to Christ, and obey His commands, be encouraged that He is "continuing his work" in you as well.
5. Following Jesus is a beautiful, lifelong process, not a one-and-done moment.
Following Jesus is a commitment for life - a life filled with incredible amounts of joy and peace. It is not a one-and-done moment where we pray a prayer. Praying to receive Christ is only the beginning of a life of drawing close to God.
There is a maturing process in the life of the believer, similar to a child growing to adulthood. The Bible speaks of this - of the immaturity and maturity of Christians. Growing to Christian maturity takes a lifetime of submitting to God and His Word, and His process in our lives.
Don't ever be fatalistic, thinking your growth is so slow that it will never really happen. Keep following hard after the Lord. Keep getting back up and obeying. (see Proverbs 24:16)
The good news is we can slowly see spiritual growth in our lives: growth in love, humility, trust, obedience.
It is the work of God in us. Allow God to work this in you over the course of months and years, and don't forget to look back on all He has done, and rejoice!
6. Always keep working to follow Jesus more.
A wise Christian knows that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," (Matthew 26:41) and they will always be weak as long as they are here on this earth, so they "make no provision for the flesh," (Romans 13:14) and they "flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness." (1 Timothy 6:11)
One of the best books you can read for a Biblical framework of growing in Christ is "The Pursuit of Holiness" by Jerry Bridges. This is essential reading for any serious Christian. Jerry says:
"Scripture speaks of both a holiness which we have in Christ before God, and a holiness which we are to strive after. God has made provision for us to live holy, but He has also given us definite responsibilities to pursue holiness. Only as we accept our responsibility and appropriate God’s provisions will we make any progress in our pursuit of holiness."
So spend your life running the race, and enjoying every step of the journey to know Christ more, and continually offering your whole heart to God.
As Jerry Bridges mentions, God has given us "provisions" by which we may grow.
Many Christians today feel like their faith is stagnant, and they are not growing at the pace they should be.
So far we have looked at how growing in our faith often takes much longer than we expect, and our struggle with our flesh is a lifelong one.
But we also looked at how we work from our salvation, not for our salvation, because we trust solely in what Christ has done completely for us in the gospel. We are His by grace through faith in Him.
But as Jerry Bridges mentions, God has given us "provisions" to grow in in our faith. And though we will never be perfect, God calls us to follow Him, and He walks with us, and He empowers us to follow Him.
Now that we’ve talked about how growth in your faith often looks, here are 5 simple, practical, Biblical steps you can take to see growth in your faith:
1. Spiritual growth comes through engagement with God's Word.
God's Word is our primary tool for Christian growth. It is our spiritual food. Without the Word in our lives, we go about famished and weak spiritually. Jesus taught us "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." We need to feed our spirit, and strive to walk in the Spirit, not the flesh.
My friend and mentor Jon Bloom says, “What we desperately need, more than anything else in the world, is the word of Christ dwelling in us richly.”
We desperately need more of God's Word in our lives through reading, meditating, and applying Scripture to our everyday life.
We also get more of God's Word through the Bible-teaching of a local church.
RA Torrey once said, "Christians who pray for power, but neglect the Bible abound in the Church. But the power that belongs to God is stored up in the great reservoir of His own Word, the Bible."
The power you long for, for your Christian growth comes through reading and applying the Word of God.
2. Spiritual growth comes through connection with the Body of Christ.
God has chosen to work through His Body, the Church, to make us more like Him. We cannot achieve the growth we need on our own. If we do not take advantage of the encouragement and fellowship of other believers, we will always wonder why we are so far from the growth we want to see.
A pastor from Asia has written how God often works in our lives through other believers, showing us His Divine preference for the Body of Christ to build itself up when it works together. This writer shared how he was praying for healing in an area of his life, but it nothing was happening. He finally asked some others in his church to pray for him (even though he felt weren't people of great faith), and God immediately worked in his life through their prayers. This is because God works through the Body of Christ, to show us how vital it is for us to have connection to the Body.
3. Spiritual growth comes through confession & repentance.
We can see tremendous growth in our Christian lives when we confess our sins to a trusted Christian friend. Bringing our sins into the light through confession can relieve the burden and power sin tries to have in our lives. It takes humility and courage to do this, but the Bible calls us to do this, so the Body of Christ can work together to grow.
God calls us not only to believe in His Son, but also to repent of our sins. When you repent, you agree with God about your sinfulness and the ways you have turned from Him, and you re-commit yourself to walking according to His ways. This means to "put aside" sinful habits, to run away from sin, and to give no provision for your flesh to sin.
Yes, you may stumble in various ways, but continue to get back up, re-commit yourself to holiness, and make it difficult for yourself to walk in your flesh. This is a lifestyle of repentance.
We do not always "feel" like confession and repentance, but we shouldn't let our emotions dictate our decisions. Jon Bloom says, "our emotions are gauges, not guides. They tell us where we are, but we shouldn't let them tell us where to go." Instead, part of repentance is submitting our emotions to God, and asking Him to direct our hearts to believe His Word over what we see and feel. Our emotions change, but God's Word does not.
4. Spiritual growth comes through loving & serving others.
God's greatest dream for our lives is not success or opportunity, but obedience to Him, and finding people to love and serve in His Name.
Francis Chan has said, "Do you want to experience God? Go and make disciples." There is something about obeying the Lord to love and serve others that fills our lives with joy and God's presence.
Bob Goff has said, "I used to want to change people. Now I just want to be with them." This is often what it looks like to love and serve others. To be with them. To listen to them. To care.
Christian growth is not simply following commands, but a heart attitude to love and serve others. If we are not growing in loving others, we are not truly growing in Christ. We should pray and ask God to fill our lives with His peace, joy and love, and to help us to walk in love toward all we meet.
5. Spiritual growth comes through persistence in seeking the Lord.
We need to regularly submit our hearts to the rule and reign of Christ if we are going to make any progress in spiritual growth.
Our faith and growth as a Christian is not a one-and-done prayer, but a persistent pursuit of God over our entire lives!
AW Tozer shares some profound insights about our pursuit of God:
"To have found God and still pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love."
"Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God. Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God. When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us."
"Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us."
"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more."
There is so much joy in persistently pursuing God, and encountering Him through His Word. May you be ever hungry to know Him more, and to walk with Him closely. May your heart burst to experience His goodness and growth in your everyday life!
Through these "provisions," God is working in us to help us grow in our faith, and learn to follow Him better.
God's work in us is so much greater than our own, but that doesn't negate our responsibility to walk in these four ways God has set before us in His Word.
If you want to read more on how to grow as a Christian, pick up these four powerful books:
"The Pursuit of Holiness" by Jerry Bridges
"The Incredible Patience of God" by Lane Adams
“Truth Plus Love” by Matt Brown
“The Mark of the Christian” by Francis Schaeffer
Matt Brown is an evangelist, author of Truth Plus Love, host of Think Eternity with Matt Brown, and founder of Think Eternity — a ministry helping people find fulfillment in Jesus through podcasts, blogs, videos, outreaches and more. Matt and his wife Michelle have four children and live near the Twin Cities, Minnesota. You can follow Matt at @evangelistmatt