Spiritual growth is not an option.
Spiritual growth is a cause. Growth is a natural progression of life. Just because you have failed in one area, never means that failure defines your entire life.
You can grow beyond your failure. God has given us life, and every day we have the opportunity to grow — physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of [k]corruptible seed but [l]incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever, because “All flesh is as grass, and all [n]the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away, But the Word of the Lord endures forever. Now, this is the Word which by the gospel was preached to you. (I Peter 1:22–25, NKJV)
You tend to judge the level of your spiritual growth by shortcomings and daily failures. A failure in one area is never the gauge for your overall spiritual maturity. But, spiritual growth does begin with a seed. The principle of the “seed” applies to your Spirit life. When you receive Jesus, the seed of God’s Spirit plants in your Spirit.
God’s seed is like all seeds. All seeds need soil, water, and light to produce fruit.
The Soil
The soil matters.
“Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased, and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Mark 4:3–9, NKJV)
Jesus shared this powerful parable. The parable begins with a person sowing seed. Later in the parable, Jesus explains that the seed is the Word of God, and the seed is being sown in the soil of human hearts.
The human heart has a variety of conditions. Some soil is stony and cannot receive the seed. Another seed is thorny and chokes the Word out before it can germinate. And still, other hearts are entangled with things of this world, and the seed never takes root. Every human heart falls under one of these four categories. The final category is the believer that hears the message, believes the message, and bears the fruit of the seed.
All believers receive the seed of the Word of God. After the seed germinates, we begin the process of bearing fruit.
The essence of spirituality is never void of growth.
As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (I Peter 2:2–3, NKJV)
Do you see it? We are to desire the Word of God as a baby craves milk. The nourishment from the milk results in growth for the baby. As we desire the Word and draw the nutrition from the Word of God, the result is spiritual growth.
This means that God’s Word is the sustenance of our spiritual growth. Believers receive nourishment when our soul connects to the Word of God in a way that transforms us. When we connect to the Word, we grow into what the Word declares we can become. It all starts with a seed.
The seed of God’s Spirit connects with nutrient-rich soil called the born again Spirit, and together the Spirit and Word produce the fruit of the Spirit.
It all starts with a seed and the seed produces fruit – the fruit of the Spirit in the life of a believer.
It’s growing season.
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