Spiritual Growth Is Not About Getting—It’s About Becoming

Russ Ewell:

Growing spiritually is one of the great blessings of being a Christian. Blessing meaning empowerment in many ways because when we’re blessed by God or we’re blessed by another human being, there’s an element of that that’s meant to empower us. Not just to give us things, but to give us the ability to be something and to become something. And that’s what growth is about. My name is Russ Ewell and what we’re offering today, from the scriptural point of view, we’re offering that God has given us extraordinary power to help us grow. And so the first thing we want to do is set the table by talking about how God helps us grow. What does he do? What does he do for us? What does he give us?

How does he work with us? You know, an interesting passage of the Bible, it speaks to leaders, but it’s true for all people. It’s 2 Timothy 4:5. And he’s talking to a leader and he says, as Paul writes to the Spirit of God, 

But as for you, be clear-headed in every situation. Stay calm and cool and steady. Endure every hardship without flinching. Do the work of evangelists fulfill the duties of your ministry? 

There are four qualities that you could call spiritual life skills. Clear-headed, calm, cool, steady. I’m quoting the Amplified version of the Bible. In that same book, 2 Timothy 1:6-7 of the Amplified, it says,

But he has given us a spirit of power and of love and a sound judgment and personal discipline. Abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control. Now there’s a lot there in 2 Timothy 1:6-7. We’re not going to focus on Timothy and the unique gifts he received. We’re going to focus on what it’s telling us about, which is the Spirit of God. What does the Spirit of God do for us? The Spirit of God does not make us timid. The Spirit of God does not make us cowardly.

The Spirit of God does not make us afraid. In fact, the Spirit of God says it’s going to produce power in your life, love in your life, sound judgment in your life, and personal discipline in your life. In other words, God is always trying to help us become who we need to be so that we can do the things that He is destined us to do. And if you look at the scriptures, I think they’re pretty clear that every single human being has not only an opportunity for salvation but an opportunity to fulfill a unique purpose. 

And so what we landed on really, if you look at this whole list from these scriptures, and you can look in a lot of places, you can find a lot of things about skills that we need and God will give us to be able to achieve our life goals, to be able to fulfill our purpose. 

There’s 10. Clear-headed, calm, cool, steady, powerful, loving, sound judgment, personal discipline, well-balanced mind, self-control.

Who wouldn’t want those? I know I want them and I don’t yet have them. But how do we get them? Well, the Bible says in Galatians 5:16, let me emphasize this. I’m using the Passion translation. 

Let me emphasize this. As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. 

What the Bible is telling us in this unique translation, which definitely is not a word-for-word translation, but it uses an almost meaning for meaning, but mostly it’s telling us emotionally what the Bible is trying to get across to us. If you prefer the NASB or the NIV or any of those translations, that’s great. And you should keep those right next to you. But this one allows us to experience the emotional meaning and depth of what the Bible wants us to hear, what God wants us to hear. Galatians 5:16.

Let me emphasize this, as you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. 

The Holy Spirit’s work in our life is dynamic, it’s moving, it’s powerful, and it’s doing more than just allowing us to survive, it’s encouraging us to thrive and flourish. The Bible goes on in Galatians 5:17 in the Passion Translation, when your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit, you hinder him from living free within you. 

One of the things I realized about my life is I don’t always allow God to have free reign in my life. I don’t allow him to operate without limits. How does God help us grow? By us giving him no limitations in what he does in our life. Putting nothing in the path of him trying to help us grow and become who we’re meant to be.

When your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit, you hinder Him from living free within you. And the Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your self-life from dominating you. So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life and the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit. But, when you yield to the life of the Spirit, you will no longer be living under the law but soaring above it.

In other words, when God is allowed to work in your life through the Holy Spirit, we’re no longer focused on our behavior. We’re actually experiencing the transformative work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we read the Bible and as we pray. It makes us different and it gives us those 10 skills, those 10 qualities I mentioned earlier. And let’s finish with this, Galatians 5:22. 

But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love. That’s the passion translation.

But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love and all its varied expressions. Joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, that’s goodness, faith that prevails, that’s faithfulness, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities for they’re meant to be limitless.

In other words, never set the law. Never make your life about behavior and surviving as a Christian. Make your life about allowing God’s Holy Spirit to work in your life without hindrance, without limits, and that He will use His power to produce limitless growth in your life. As I’m praying and hoping, He produces limitless growth in my life. 

Today, we hope to be able to produce, believe it or not, three or four podcasts for you that we want to break up and make a little bit shorter, a little bit briefer. And this is just to get us set with how God helps us grow. In the following podcasts, the ones you’ll get, and they’ll drop at different times, we’re going to talk about what are spiritual life skills. What are these skills and abilities God wants to help us grow in so we can fulfill every aspect of what he has planned for our life and so that we can handle everything that comes at us?

The second podcast, how do spiritual life skills change our lives? How does this change our lives? What does it make possible? 

And then finally, how do we teach spiritual life skills? A lot of times we’re in relationships as Christians or as people just in general, whether you believe, you may be an atheist and say, I want to listen to this because I want to figure out how to get some of these skills going in my life. But how do we teach? Most of the time we don’t think about teaching, but almost all growth comes from teaching. Someone’s got to teach us or we teach each other. And so, we’ll be back in our next podcast with a guest that I mentioned, and let’s just consider that coming up, part two. Thanks for listening. Deep Spirituality, don’t forget to subscribe and don’t forget to like everything you can for us to help us be able to reach as many people as quickly as possible to bring inspiration into everyone’s life.