The Bible says in Luke 2:52 that our Lord Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. In another passage, in 1 Samuel 2:21, the Bible tells us that the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord. Through those two passages, the Bible shows us a common point: the idea of growth. Each of us, as child of God, has to grow in our faith, not only in the knowledge of the Lord, but also in wisdom, understanding and maturity. Then, it is not in the plan of God that year after year, you do not know any growth into your life. If there is no growth, there is a need to question ourselves if there is a problem in our walk with God.
In this consideration, I engage you through this article to ask yourself if you are on a dynamic of growth, or if you are stagnating into your Christian life. And if you are into a situation when you do not see any growth in your faith, ask yourself this question: why am I not growing into my faith?
Different reasons can explain why you are not actually growing into your faith. The first reason we can study here is the lack of spiritual discipline. In 1 Timothy 4:11-15, apostle Paul gives to Timothy a long list of recommendations, related to his ministry. He says that by doing those things, everyone will see progress in his life. Those recommendations are a set of spiritual habits that he recommends to Timothy to practice daily. Not all children of God are called to have a ministry like Timothy, but all of us are called to practice spiritual discipline. With our current generation of social media, technology and entertainment, we can be easily distracted, and instead to spend time in the presence of the Lord, we will spend most of our time in the practice of habits that will not help us to be close to the Lord. Unless you develop some spiritual habits, you will not be able to grow into your faith. What are those spiritual habits?
The most basic of any Christian life, prayer and meditation of the Word of God. By prayer, you can talk with God, and develop an intimacy with Him. You can check my article on prayer to have more information. By meditation of the Word of God, you can learn to think like God, to think biblically, and replace an old sinful mindset by a godly mindset. Moreover, the meditation of the Word of God helps you to know God more and more, by understanding better who He is, how He thinks, what is His nature, and how He would like us to live. By meditating the Word of God, you think progressively like God thinks. You should then develop those habits on a daily basis, and it will help you to know a spiritual growth. During a part of my Christian life, I neglected to pray and to meditate the Word of God on a daily basis. I was not very aware of the importance of those habits, and I slowly declined spiritually without realizing it. I was no more growing, i was stagnating. It is when I saw that there was definitely a problem in my faith that I decided to come back to a daily life of prayer and meditation of the Word of God. At this moment, some spiritual problems I had began to slowly disappear. If you do not see any spiritual progress into your life, it is maybe because you neglect your spiritual habits. Take the decision now to come back to a daily life of prayer and meditation, you will see the difference.
The second reason why some Christians do not grow in their faith is because they walk with bad friends. In 1 Corinthians 15:33, it is said that bad company corrupts good character. In Proverbs 13:20, it is said “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm“. Some Christians, even after their rebirth, want to keep the same friends they had before. They maintain those bad relationships, not realizing that they have a bad influence on them. Not all old friends are necessarily bad, but if they have not Christ, they will not understand your faith in God, and it will always impact you negatively.
On my way of faith, I saw several times how the impact of friendships can affect negatively or positively our faith. In 100% of cases, every time you have a bad friend, you will always negatively be impacted. Perhaps that at the moment when you read this post, you know that you have a bad friend, someone who does not believe in God like you and has no intention to motivate you in this sense. Even so you love this person and know that it impacts negatively your faith, take the decision to leave this person. Otherwise, you will continue to stagnate into your life. It can be painful, but at least you will find peace, and later, you will realize that you took the right decision. God knows the best for us.
The third reason why some Christians do not grow in their faith, it is because they are not stable in a local church. For example, someone who was born again is in the Church, is faithful to Sunday services of a church he recently discovered, he decides to serve in some teams, but he has a problem with anger. Every time he has a frustration, he immediately expresses his anger with other people. And when he is reproached to have a bad attitude, he immediately leaves the church, and seeks another church. By doing that, he will seek during several years the perfect church, but will never find it, because there is no perfect church, but also will never understand that the main problem is him. The reason why some Christians leave a church can be different, but when a Christian is constantly leaving a church after a few weeks or a few months, his faith has a problem.
And in this situation, he cannot grow in his faith, and he is spiritually instable. Maybe that you are actually in this situation, and you are looking for a church where you could pray and serve. I recommend you to ask yourself if you are actually growing or if you are stagnating, but also I recommend you before anything else to pray God to tell you what is the reason of your instability. If you read this post and know that you are unable to stay constant in a church more than a few weeks or months and constantly change of church since several years, maybe it is time to humble yourself and to ask if the problem is not with you and not with others. God loves you, and He wants you to be stable, to grow and especially to be happy in your faith. God will give you a response, if you are patient and gives Him time to talk to you. That is why the Bible says in Hebrews 10:25 not to give up our assembly.
The last reason I can mention about why some Christians do not grow in their faith is that they listen to too many voices. What I mean by that is that you should be careful about what you listen to and who you listen to. By listening to false preachers, you are actually affecting your faith. You can recognize false preachers by simply analyzing if what they say is biblically correct, and the Holy Spirit can help you to discern, with the knowledge of the Word of God. I will not mention any false or right preacher, I believe that the Holy Spirit will teach you better than me. You have to be careful about the kind of teaching you listen to, because it has an impact on your faith. In 1 Timothy 1:3-4, apostle Paul recommends Timothy to command some people not to teach false doctrins. For us today, it is a recommendation to refuse to listen to any false doctrine.
The second thing to take in account is the quantity of movies and images you consume on social media. By spending too much time on social media, you can affect negatively not only your spiritual state, but also your mental and emotional state. Recently, I realized that the fact to consume too much news had a negative impact on me. When I stopped with that, I saw a clear difference. By consuming too much of those things, you are shaping your way of thinking and your faith. And when it takes more time than God, it becomes an idol. In Luke 4:8 the Lord Jesus says “It is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only“. This verse has a lot of implications, but it shows us that we should not give our heart to the things of this world, because they remove us from the presence of God. In 1 John 2:15, the Bible tells us not to love the things of this world, because the one who loves them has not the love of God in him. what a powerful statement. For us, it is an interpellation ot to turn away from God by being consumed by those things which remove us from the presence of God. If you give your heart to those things, you will be negatively influenced, and your faith will not grow.
Then, at the end of this post, my advice for you is to take the decision to be intentional in your spiritual growth. I invite you to take a time of reflection about your life, your progression until today, your decisions, and the direction you are giving to your life now. If you think you are going into the right direction, glory to God, this post is an encouragement. But if you think you are going into the wrong direction, review this post again and take time to pray for the points where God talked to you.
God loves you. Grow in Christ, and achieve His plan for your life.
