What Are The Keys To Spiritual Growth

In this blog post, I will talk about how to grow spiritually as a child of God. In our physical world, we take care of and maintain our physical body with food. In the same manner, we ought to take care of our spiritual bodies. 

Let’s chew over this analogy (No pun intended) 

When we eat, we chew over our food, and when the food enters our body, it extracts nutrients from the food. If you have mashed potatoes with steak and vegetables, your body will benefit from the carbohydrates, protein, and vitamins. But, say you eat, and your body cannot extract the nutrients from your food, you might end up malnourished or even anemic. Therefore, our body must extract nutrients from the food that we eat to help our body function in the way God created it to perform. 

With this analogy, we can say how we can feed our body with spiritual food and grow spiritually. Just like physical food have nutrients that help our body grow, spiritual food also has “nutrients” that will help us grow spiritually. 

When we eat our physical food, we take our time to chew on the food, especially if you are eating a gourmet meal and you are determined to savor all its texture and flavor. Let’s say you spent some money to buy a good piece of fillet mignon, you brought it home, seasoned it, and grilled it to perfection; You prepared some rice and vegetables to go along with your steak. Now it is time to eat; I am pretty sure you are going to take your time to chew every piece and enjoy as much as possible. 

It should be the same when we ‘eat’ our spiritual food, which entails maintaining a personal relationship with God, reading your bible, meditating on God’s word, and praying to God. Many of us do these activities with little thought of its significance, and we pretty much rush through it. Just like enjoying a gourmet meal, your time with God is so much more significant and precious than any gourmet food you will ever enjoy. 

After Jesus had fasted in the desert and the devil came to tempt Him, the first temptation the devil threw at Jesus, and you can find that passage in Matthew 4:2 NIV “After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, “if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “it is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’

In this above verse, Jesus rebukes the devil and tells him that we shall not live by physical food alone but by the essential food, which is spiritual food (every word that comes from the mouth of God.)

How can we grow spiritually and have spiritual strength to resist the devil’s wiles and live according to God’s will and purpose? 

Have an intimate relationship with God: Our first step to growing in the Spirit is to have a personal relationship with God. Having a personal relationship with God entails prayer, which must be two-way communication. You speak to God, and He talks back to you. Hearing from God comes in different forms, but as your relationship grows more substantial, the way God speaks to you will become evident. Here are some ways God speaks to us today, He might talk to you through your dreams, through the bible, through prophets, through visions, through a distinct voice in your head, through songs, through movies; As your relationship with God grows, the way He talks to you will become more evident. It is a beautiful thing to hear God speak to you. 

Prayer is a type of spiritual activity designed by God to facilitate His fellowship with you primarily. It is a way to bring God’s perfect Will from Heaven to earth. 

Reading The Bible: One of the common ways to hear God speak is to read the bible. The bible is our spiritual food, and we must read it, chew on it, and savor every word. Many people will usually read through the bible without taking the time to feel what they are reading. Reading the bible is a spiritual activity and not a physical activity; therefore, we must approach it as such. When we worship God, we must worship Him in Spirit and Truth (John 4:24). When reading the bible, it is vital to take your time and feel the words you read in your heart, read the words’ verse by verse, and savor each verse. Chew each verse over, meditate on the words, let it speak to you, for God is always talking to us. Sometimes you might have to ponder over a verse for a whole day or even an entire week. Let God do His work within you; if He highlights a verse to you, meditate on that word as the Spirit leads you. As you do that, you are growing stronger in the Spirit. 

Fasting: Fasting gives fuel to our prayers. In Mark 9:17-29, a man brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus for Jesus to deliver him, the man said he took his son to Jesus’ disciples, but they were unable to heal his son. After Jesus had healed the possessed boy, His disciples asked Him why they failed to deliver the boy, and Jesus replied to them and said that “This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting.” Here, we can see Jesus often fasted as He worked in His earthly ministry. When we fast, (Isaiah 58) Fasting helps us grow spiritually; fasting draws us closer to God, fasting breaks bonds and yokes from our lives, and fasting ensures that God hears our petition, fasting sets the oppressed free, fasting heals and strengthens our physical body. Fasting should be a priority as a Christain. Fast at least once a week or as The Holy Spirit leads you. 

Worship & Thanksgiving: When you worship, you are joining the angels in Heaven in worshiping God. God loves our worship and thanksgiving. Sometimes all you have to do for blessings to be released is worshiping God and saying thank-you. 

• Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty Who was, and is, and is to come. You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your Will they were created and have their being. 

God requires us to grow Spiritually so that we can overcome the wiles of the enemy, we can hear from God, and we can be filled with our spiritual gifts so that we can live our purpose here on earth. 

God loves you, and He wants to have an intimate relationship with you. He wants to hear from you today. 

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