Billy Graham once said, “Do you want to know what God’s will is for you? It is for you to become more and more like Christ. This is spiritual maturity, and if you make this your goal, it will change your life.” The problem is how to become more mature in Christ. This article provides seven steps that will help you become more mature in your faith.
Step One: Find a Christian mentor. Search for someone that knows more about the Lord than you do and is willing to share their wisdom and experiences. Sit with them and soak up as much history from their lives as you can. There is much richness in history and the wisdom that comes from experiences.
Step Two: Take time to dedicate yourself to study the word. I know a personwho has a great relationship with Christ. She inspires me to continually dig deeper into my faith and make the Lord a larger part of my life. I want a relationship to Christ that is so close that I thank Him and rely on Him in every situation, big or small.One day I realized that this lady really understands the Bible. This makes me to want to read a passage every day and think about each passage until it permeates my mind and heart.
Step Three: Invite the Holy Spirit into your life to empower you and your thinking. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the healer, the comforter, and the guide, and He loves you and cares for you. The Holy spirit will bless your creations and your thinking if you allow Him to do so. Allow the Holy Spirit to take control of your life. Don’t think that you are in control of your life and hope that God approves of your plan. Take a risk and trust God with your life.
Step Four: Know what you believe, because what you believe about God will determine what you believe about your life. For example, we know that Noah, the man who built the Ark, thought that God was awesome and trustworthy, because he would never have started construction on the ark if he didn’t think that. Another example, Jonah, the man who was swallowed by a big fish and landed in the its belly, believed that God didn’t quite know what He was doing, and that is why ran away. He eventually found out that God knows exactly what He is doing and that running from God is not the answer.
Step Five: Accept that God’s Word is true and is life. Jesus gave His life for you and wants you to life as a reflection of His nature and character so that others see Him in you. Be a light for Him and that can only come as you develop a trust that His Word is true.
Step Six: Purpose in your heart to pray more and worry less. Paul states in Philippians 4:6: “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” With the growing demands and challenges in our lives today, we can allow our concerns to become worries and steal our joy. The Bible says in Matthew 6:34: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” and Proverbs 20:24 states that “Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?”
My own prayer story is a marvelous testimony of the power of prayer. When I was a sophomore in high school, I was having trouble understanding chemistry. As a young teenager and thinking about my future, I knew I wanted to marry a smart man. One day I asked my chemistry teacher what kind of jobs required a keen knowledge of chemistry and he told me that a chemical engineering was such a profession. So, every day for a year, I prayed to marry a chemical engineer. Fast forward ten years, I am now engaged to be married to a wonderful Christian man and about a week before my wedding, my mother handed me all my diaries. Lo and behold, I am reading my diary for my sophomore year and am reminded of my prayer for that year. Now at the age of 27, I am getting to marry the only chemical engineer in Joplin, Missouri. I had completely forgotten my prayer, but God had not. Be careful of what you pray.
Step Seven: Allow you passion to serve to bloom. Be mindful to see more clearly what is calling to you from the many distractions in our lives. Passion does not just pop up fully formed; instead, it emerges to lead us in what we want to do with time, energy, talents and abilities and our precious lives. Passion is like an arrow that points us to our life’s larger purpose. Don’t let passion be buried in your busy life. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead your passion.
These are seven steps that will lead you toward spiritual maturity. I don’t know about you, but I am looking around me right now for my Christian mentor. Don’t be surprised if I tap you on the shoulder.
