How Do I Grow in My Faith? (Foundations 2022)

Becoming skilled at anything requires time and effort. If one wants to become a musician of skill, they must spend years practicing daily. If one wants to grow as an athlete, it requires self-discipline and practice. Growth in every area including relationships requires time and effort.

When Christians do not think intentionally about their spiritual growth, they should not expect significant growth. Without understanding the biblical marks of spirituality, the Christian will struggle to exemplify these marks. Without comprehension of their current spiritual state, a path to exemplifying spiritual marks becomes impossible to find. 

For the past two weeks, we have looked at the Word of God to discover the marks of a believer. We identified five marks: A love for God's people, a desire to obey God's commands, a commitment to communicate with God, eagerness for unity through humility, and producing the fruit of the Spirit. This past week we called on one another to their lives against the marks to determine their current spiritual standing. When Christians identify the marks and standing, they can identify a practical path between the two. Today we will discover that this path consists of the spiritual disciples.

The path to godliness is not easy. Instead, this path requires effort. Any relationship (including our relationship with God) takes time and effort. This means that God intends ordinary Christians to practice the spiritual disciplines. He does not reserve these disciplines for a supposed class of super Christian. Hebrews 12:14 informs us that no one will see the Lord without godliness. And the path to Godliness runs through the spiritual disciplines. 

If you are a believer, you are called to practice the Spiritual disciplines. While Christ declares the believer righteous through the forensic act of justification at the moment of salvation (Romans 3:24), that moment begins the process of sanctification in the believer's life by which the believer conforms to the image of Christ. This conformity takes place through spiritual disciplines. 

How can we claim this fact? Are we sure that the Bible calls each of us to practice spiritual discipline in our lives? And what do we mean by Spiritual Disciplines?

Today I want to walk us through three important texts which show us God’s method of spiritual growth, our responsibility in Spiritual growth, and the danger of ignoring spiritual growth.