Main Summary: Growing Up Spiritually by Kenneth Hagin guides believers through three stages of spiritual growth—babyhood, childhood, and manhood—comparing them to natural development. It reveals how to locate yourself spiritually, embrace right teaching, walk in love, and mature into the full stature of Christ through consistent feeding on God’s Word.
Lessons You’ll Learn From This Post
- Locating Yourself
- Babyhood
- Childhood
- Manhood
- Walking With Your Father
- Walking In Love
- Receiving the Knowledge
Also read The Normal Christian Life By Watchman Nee [Summary]
No one is born a full-grown human naturally and physically. Similarly, no one is born a full-grown Christian.
Locating Yourself
● Paul’s letter to the Ephesians shows that even established churches hadn’t fully matured spiritually yet.
● The word “perfect” in Ephesians 4:13 actually means “mature” or “fully grown” in the original context.
● Spiritual development follows the same three stages as physical development: babyhood, childhood, and manhood.
● Just as no one is born a full-grown adult physically, no one is born a full-grown Christian spiritually.
● Every believer starts as a spiritual baby and must deliberately grow into maturity.
● God holds the church responsible for nurturing newborn believers who come to faith.
● New converts need patient care, prayer, and follow-up, not harsh criticism for their immaturity.
● Christians should not expect brand-new believers to live with the same maturity as seasoned saints.
● Newborn Christians don’t know what they don’t know and cannot fend for themselves spiritually.
● Spiritual growth happens when believers receive the “sincere milk of the Word” consistently.
If you are a newborn babe in Christ, you don’t have any past. You may have been as mean as the devil.
Babyhood
Innocence
● A baby’s innocence is its most attractive quality because it has no past to weigh it down.
● When you are born again in Christ, you have no past either, regardless of how you lived before.
● God views every newborn believer as an innocent babe because old things have passed away.
● Innocence is one characteristic believers should never outgrow throughout their Christian walk.
● Maintaining innocence keeps believers from falling under the devil’s condemnation and spiritual defeat.
● New converts are simple, full of faith, and ready to learn with a teachable spirit.
● Christians must preserve that teachable spirit instead of developing a “know-it-all” attitude.
● People who think they already know everything cannot be helped by anyone, including God Himself.
● An open, teachable, and innocent spirit toward God and man is essential for continued growth.
Ignorance
● Babies put everything they find into their mouths because they lack knowledge about what is harmful.
● Spiritual babies do the same thing by consuming poisonous doctrines without recognizing the danger.
● Christians must be as careful about what they read as they are about what they eat physically.
● Poisonous religious books can destroy spirituality, ruin testimonies, and rob believers of their faith.
● A Spirit-filled minister lost his soul-winning ministry after accepting false doctrines from bad reading material.
● Even born-again, Spirit-filled people can be led astray by doctrines that distract from fundamental Gospel truths.
● Some doctrinal differences are not essential to salvation, but divisive teachings that split Christians come from the devil.
● The Spirit of Love never divides believers; division is always of the devil.
● When a book or teaching takes faith out of you instead of building faith in you, lay it down immediately.
● “You are what you eat” applies spiritually as much as physically—”you are what you read.”
● It would be better to avoid poisonous reading material unless you are mature enough to discern and rightly divide truth.
● The devil wraps poison in good scripture to make it appealing, just as poison is hidden in good meat to trap a dog.
Irritability
● Babies spoil easily and become irritable when they are overindulged with light, handling, and constant attention.
● Spiritual babies also become demanding and irritable when they are spoiled with excessive coddling.
● Isaac’s weaning was celebrated with a great feast, which pictures the joy when Christians mature off the bottle.
● Weaning time in the church should be a celebration, but instead it often becomes a time of crying and complaint.
● Many churches have nurseries full of older babies who refuse to give up their beds or bottles for new converts.
● Even Spirit-filled believers can remain spiritual babies if they refuse to grow beyond selfish demands.
● Some Christians require constant visits, petting, and attention instead of becoming mature enough to help others.
● Pastors sometimes waste valuable time on babies who refuse to grow while new converts desperately need attention.
● When ministers stop catering to spoiled babies, those babies often become more faithful to church.
● Mature Christians should be able to help others instead of always needing to be propped up, pumped up, and fed.
● When weaning is done properly, a child turns its face from the bottle instead of crying for it.
● Peter commanded believers to “desire the sincere milk of the Word” so they could grow thereby.
● Some pastors who claim to give milk have actually given their congregations only “bluejohn”—milk with all the cream removed.
● If people had been receiving true milk, they would have grown over thirty years instead of remaining babies.
● Babies are easily frustrated, easily distracted, and easily hurt, but God wants to bring us beyond these weaknesses.
● The Lord desires to mature us to the place where we are not so easily offended or distracted from His purposes.
Also read Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney
Folks who are talking all the time are usually guilty of at least three sins. They are often guilty of evil speaking. They are often guilty of vain speaking. And they are often guilty of foolish speaking.
Childhood
Unsteadiness
● Paul told the Ephesians they should no longer be spiritual children, indicating they had remained immature too long.
● Children in the natural are unsteady, unreliable, impressionable, and spasmodic in their behavior.
● Spiritual children display the same unreliable characteristics in their Christian walk.
● A child may start a task with enthusiasm but quickly abandon it when something more interesting catches their attention.
● Many Christians start strong when a new pastor arrives but disappear after a few months.
● Some church members enthusiastically support a revival meeting for the first service or two, then never return.
● These same members often act surprised when the meeting closes, as if they had been participating all along.
● You cannot put a grown head on a child, either physically or spiritually.
● Unsteady believers cannot be depended upon to follow through on their commitments to God and His church.
● Spiritual children are easily distracted from their responsibilities and obligations.
● The childhood stage is characterized by enthusiasm without follow-through and excitement without endurance.
Curiosity
● Children are full of curiosity and want to know what is in every package and around every corner.
● Spiritual children are equally curious about gossip and the private affairs of others.
● Whenever there is a bit of gossip circulating, spiritual children want to know “Who? Who?”
● Curiosity is a characteristic of immaturity that leads believers into trouble.
● If you tell a child not to look in a closet, they will get into it as surely as anything.
● Spiritual children cannot resist poking their noses into other people’s business.
● The Word of God explicitly teaches believers to mind their own business.
● God does not want His children meddling in affairs that do not concern them.
● A wise pastor redirected a curious church member by asking about his own personal finances.
● It is no more a church member’s business what the pastor does with his money than it is the pastor’s business what the member does with theirs.
● Learning to be quiet and tend to your own business is a mark of spiritual maturity.
Talkativeness
● Children have never learned the value of silence, and spiritual children are equally talkative.
● The Word of God warns that “in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.”
● A fool’s voice is known by the multitude of their words, according to Ecclesiastes.
● Spiritual children blab constantly because they haven’t learned to control their tongues.
● People who talk all the time are usually guilty of at least three specific sins.
● Evil speaking involves discussing the faults and failures of people who are not present.
● Vain speaking is always talking about oneself: what I’ve done, where I’ve been, and what I’m going to do.
● Foolish speaking involves jesting, joking, and unprofitable conversation.
● Parents must be careful what they say around children because words leave lasting impressions.
● A wise father protected his son from hearing negative talk about church members.
● The boy grew up thinking every church member was an angel because his parents never spoke against anyone.
● A wife undermined all prayers for her husband by constantly reporting church gossip to him.
● The pastor confronted her directly, and she had enough sense to listen and change her ways.
● Vain speaking crowds out true worship of the Lord in many church services.
● Some meetings feature so much bragging on each other that it becomes nauseating rather than edifying.
● It is fine to rejoice about what God is doing, but leaving the impression that we are something great is dangerous.
● Joking and jesting are not necessarily sins, but the Bible says they are “not convenient.”
● A joke-filled minister could remember hundreds of jokes but struggled to remember scriptures.
● He could have remembered scripture if he had spent as much time on it as he did on jokes.
● Even among preachers, true spiritual conversation is often hard to find.
● Many ministers want only to talk about fishing, hunting, property, and natural things.
● You cannot grow spiritually while spending all your time talking about earthly matters.
● If you try to discuss deep spiritual things with some preachers, they look at you like you are a nut.
● Spiritual growth requires guarding our speech and investing our conversation in eternal things.
One characteristic of growing up is to esteem earthly things lightly. You cannot put earthly things above spiritual things and grow spiritually.
Manhood
Esteeming Earthly Things Lightly
● Moses, when he came to years (grew up), refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
● He was heir to the treasures of Egypt with honor, wealth, and prestige, yet he esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater riches.
● A key characteristic of spiritual maturity is esteeming earthly things lightly.
● You cannot put earthly things above spiritual things and grow spiritually.
● God wants to prosper His children and wants them to have good things in life.
● The promise in Isaiah says, “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.”
● God doesn’t want us to put material things first in our lives.
● It is not wrong to have money, but it is wrong for money to have you.
● Money must never become your ruler or your master.
● God desires financial, physical, and spiritual prosperity for His children.
● The first Psalm promises that whatsoever a righteous man does shall prosper.
● We must evaluate things correctly and esteem earthly things lightly by putting first things first.
● A man considered moving his family to another town for $50 more a month, even though there was no Full Gospel church there.
● He had experienced divine healing and spiritual blessings in his current church but was willing to leave for financial gain.
● The wise counsel he received made him reconsider, and he stayed.
● A couple stopped paying tithes and stopped attending church just because their pastor backslid.
● There is no excuse for backsliding just because someone else did.
● “A rolling stone never gathers any moss,” as the saying goes, and believers need the fellowship of one another.
● The Bible commands us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.
● We need each other, and we need to grow up and esteem earthly things lightly.
● People lose their children to the world when they don’t put first things first.
● A wise father took his sick daughter to church on Christmas Sunday rather than leave her with Grandma.
● He knew that setting the right example was more important than temporary convenience.
● Training up a child in the way they should go ensures they will not depart from it when they are old.
● F.F. Bosworth wisely observed that people feed their body three hot meals a day but their spirit one cold snack a week.
● Determine in your heart to put spiritual things first, even above your own relatives and self-interest.
Deadness to Censure or Praise
● Paul had grown in grace to the point that he was not influenced by what others thought of him.
● He sought only to commend himself to God and was not affected by human judgment.
● It was not carnal independence but saintly dignity that governed his life.
● The law of love ruled him, so he was not touchy, resentful, or easily puffed up.
● Immature Christians feel slighted or puffed up when criticized or praised.
● They are restless, uneasy, and full of self-pity when criticized.
● They feel puffed up and full of self-importance when noticed and appreciated.
● Baby Christians are self-conscious and ever-conscious of what others think of them.
● This causes them to childishly try to be popular instead of seeking God’s approval.
● Mature believers are God-conscious and ever-conscious of what God’s Word says about them.
● They can testify with Paul that human judgment is a very small thing.
● This freedom allows them to walk in and voice their convictions without fear.
● The Amplified translation of 1 Corinthians 13:5 describes the mature believer as not conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride.
● The mature believer is not touchy, fretful, or resentful.
● They take no account of evil done to them and pay no attention to suffered wrongs.
Ability to Recognize God at Work
● Joseph provides the best biblical example of recognizing God at work in difficult circumstances.
● He was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers and later imprisoned for seven years.
● Most people would have become bitter and felt forsaken by God after such treatment.
● When he interpreted the butler’s dream, the butler forgot Joseph for two more years.
● Most people would have grown bitter, saying, “That’s the way it is—you try to help folks, and they won’t help you.”
● Joseph eventually became prime minister of Egypt and was brought face to face with his brothers.
● They didn’t recognize him, but he recognized them—the very ones who had sold him into slavery.
● Instead of revenge, Joseph showed magnanimity of soul and said, “God did it.”
● He told them not to be grieved or angry with themselves because God sent him to preserve their lives.
● Joseph could see God at work in everything that had happened to him.
● When you can see God at work in all things, you can rejoice regardless of circumstances.
● Poor old Jacob thought all things were against him when they were actually all for him.
● Jacob simply didn’t recognize that God was behind everything that had happened.
● Joseph had the spiritual maturity to recognize God’s hand even in his brothers’ betrayal.
● Spiritual maturity enables you to see God at work in every situation, good or bad.
Also read Love The Way to Victory by Kenneth Hagin [Summary]
If He is your Father, you can be assured He will take a father’s place and will perform a father’s part. You may be certain that if He is your Father, He loves you, and He will care for you.
Walking With Your Father
Getting Acquainted Through the Word
● Jesus taught that our heavenly Father knows what we need even before we ask Him.
● God is not the Father of everyone; sinners have the devil as their father according to Jesus.
● Even born-again believers often have never truly become acquainted with their Father.
● There is no truth in all the Bible as far-reaching as the fact that God is our Father and He cares for us.
● God is interested in each one of us individually, not just as a group or church.
● He loves every single one of His children with the same love He has for Jesus.
● The Old Covenant was harsh, demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
● Under the Old Covenant, no one dared enter God’s presence except the high priest once a year.
● The Jews could not understand Jesus introducing a loving, kind, Heavenly Father.
● They had come up in a hard, harsh atmosphere of justice rather than grace.
● Many Christians today still have never really become acquainted with God as their Father.
● Jesus said, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”
● Jesus also said, “For the Father himself loveth you.”
● The Lord’s Prayer begins with the tender words, “Our Father.”
● Paul prayed to “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”
● The terms “God” and “religion” suggest distance, but “Father” and “family” suggest intimacy.
● God may be “God” to the sinner, but He is “Father” to the believer.
● It is not important what church you are in; what matters is what family you are in.
● Smith Wigglesworth said, “I can’t understand God by feelings. I understand God the Father by what the Word says about Him.”
● Jesus said Man shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
● Jesus’ teaching about a loving Father was new to the Jews and is almost new to us today.
● Most of us have been taught to fear and shrink from a God of justice.
● Jesus came to reveal the love side of God that we had never seen before.
● One translation says, “Be therefore not faithless saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink?”
● When you talk about worry and lack, you are actually walking in unfaith.
● “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
● These things won’t be taken from you—they’ll be added to you.
● Another translation says, “Be not anxious for the morrow.”
● God doesn’t want His children full of worry, fretting, or anxiety because He loves them.
● If He is your Father, you can be assured He will take a father’s place and perform a father’s part.
● Jesus said, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
● Keeping Jesus’ commandment to love one another fulfills all the other commandments.
● God’s very nature as Love compels Him to care for, protect, and shield us.
● Jesus said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
● Parents sacrifice and work to help their children have better lives.
● Natural parents want to shield their children from life’s bumps and hard times.
● If natural people are that way, how much more will our Heavenly Father care for us?
● Jesus prayed, “That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”
● The Father loves us just as He loved Jesus.
● Jesus said, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me,” and we can say the same.
● The Father Himself knows you, loves you, and longs to bless you.
● Peter wrote, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
● The Amplified translation says, “Casting the whole of your care—all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all—on Him.”
● The Father wants us to abandon ourselves to His love and His care.
● Philippians 4:6 says, “Be careful for nothing” (do not fret or have anxiety about anything).
● Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
● Paul wasn’t special because he was an apostle; Christ strengthened him just as He strengthens us.
● If God be for us, who can be against us?
● The Father’s love compels Him to care for us, and when we know His love, all doubts and fears are destroyed.
● The Lord is our light, our deliverance, and the strength of our life.
● Hebrews 13:5-6 says, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”
● God will supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Experiencing Acquaintance
● The 23rd Psalm beautifully describes the love-attitude of the Father and Jesus toward us.
● The 22nd Psalm pictures Jesus dying; the 23rd shows Him as the Good Shepherd; the 24th shows Him as the coming King.
● We are living in the 23rd Psalm right now—”The Lord is my shepherd.”
● The author’s interpretation: “The Lord is my shepherd, I do not want.”
● Perfect satisfaction and the ultimate of living come from the Shepherd’s care.
● He leads me beside waters of stillness and provides every need.
● He makes me lie down and rest in safety and quietness in pastures of plenty.
● When frightened and filled with fear, He restores my soul.
● He brushes away fears and anxieties and breathes into me courage and faith.
● My heart laughs at my enemies because He guides me down paths of grace.
● He may be Judge to the world and God to the sinner, but He is Father to me.
● The Father told the author, “Son, you don’t know how that delights my heart.”
● No earthly father desires companionship as much as the Heavenly Father desires ours.
● God made man so He would have someone to fellowship with.
● God put Adam in the garden and walked and talked with him in the cool of the day.
● It is so blessed and beautiful to be able to walk with God.
If you walk in love, you will not fail. Love never fails! We are interested in spiritual gifts, and we ought to be. But we ought to be interested in Love first.
Walking in Love
“Loves” Compared: Divine—Natural Human
● To fellowship with God and walk in His realm, we must walk in Divine Love because God is Love.
● When we are born again, God becomes our Father, and we become loved children of a loving God.
● The nature of God is Love, and that nature is placed within every believer.
● Everyone in God’s family has this Divine Love, or else they are not in the family.
● Some believers may not be exercising this love, but it is still within them.
● The Love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
● Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
● The God-kind of Love is not selfish—”God so loved the world that He gave.”
● The love law of the family of God is to love one another as Christ loved us.
● Christ loved us while we were yet unlovely sinners and enemies of God.
● If God loved us so greatly when we were sinners, He certainly loves His children no less.
● Divine Love is completely different from natural human love, which is selfish.
● Some mistakenly think a mother’s love is akin to God’s love, but natural human love is often selfish.
● A mother who “loved” her children so much actually smothered them and drove them away.
● Her love was selfish—she wanted to keep her children with her at all costs.
● Mothers-in-law often have trouble with daughters-in-law because of selfish natural love.
● Natural human love can turn to hatred when it doesn’t get its own way.
● Divine Love, when reviled, revileth not again.
● Christians have been to divorce court, but they were not letting Divine Love dominate them.
● We can grow in Love, and the Bible speaks of being made perfect or mature in Love.
● The God-kind of Love is not interested in what it can get but in what it can give.
● This understanding can solve all the problems in your home.
● Too many Christians are selfish, always saying “I,” “I,” “I” and demanding their own way.
● In one church, a member insisted on having his “say-so” until everything was wrecked.
● A prophetic utterance declared that if that church didn’t repent, it would close within a year.
● The church closed for two years, reopened, then closed permanently because they couldn’t get along.
● Those Christians never got above the babyhood stage—they remained babies and never grew.
● The nature of God is Love, so it is natural for us spiritually to love.
● If we let our outward man and mind dominate, the Love nature in our heart is kept prisoner.
● We must release the Love of God that is within us.
An Exposé on Love
● The characteristics of God-kind of Love are found in 1 Corinthians 13.
● The Amplified translation provides the best understanding of this love exposé.
● Love endures long and is patient and kind, not just suffering long because it has to.
● Love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy.
● Love is not boastful, vainglorious, conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride.
● Love is not rude or unmannerly and does not act unbecomingly.
● Love does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking.
● Natural human love always insists on its own rights and its own way.
● Love is not touchy or fretful or resentful.
● Love takes no account of the evil done to it and pays no attention to a suffered wrong.
● When you begin taking account of evil done to you, you are not walking in Love.
● The author chose to stay happy and keep his mouth shut even when wrongly accused.
● Some ministers thought his refusal to defend himself showed weakness, but it was actually strength.
● Many Christians have failed and died prematurely because they lived in the natural.
● They were always fussing and fighting until it affected their bodies.
● God didn’t take account of the evil we did to Him when we were enemies—He sent Jesus to redeem us.
● Very few people walk in God’s Love even though they have it.
● Natural human love pays close attention to suffered wrongs.
● A husband and wife who are both Christians will often not speak for a week over some perceived wrong.
● Love does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
● Love bears up under anything and everything that comes.
● When someone says, “I just can’t take it any longer,” that’s natural human love speaking.
● The Love of God in you bears up under everything.
● Love is ever ready to believe the best of every person.
● Natural human love is ready to believe the worst of every person.
● Love believes the best about husband, wife, children, and fellow believers.
● The author travels across the country and never pays attention to negative gossip about others.
● Children ought to be brought up in this kind of Love atmosphere.
● If you see the worst in your children and always tell them they’ll never amount to anything, they’ll live up to that expectation.
● When you see the best in your children and love them rightly, it brings the best out of them.
● Love’s hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything without weakening.
● Love never fails—it never fades out, becomes obsolete, or comes to an end.
● If you walk in love, you will not fail.
● Prophecies will fail, tongues shall cease, and knowledge shall vanish away, but Love never fails.
● Spiritual gifts can be exercised outside of Love and become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.
● We should have prophecy, tongues, faith, and knowledge, but we must have Love with them.
● Love must be first because we are in the family of Love and have become acquainted with our Heavenly Father.
● We ought to want to learn, grow, and be made perfect in Love.
● We can be made perfect in Love in this world, not just the next.
● Some of us are going to make it, and we shouldn’t quit just because we haven’t arrived yet.
Determine in your heart to put spiritual things first. First things first. Put God before your own self-life.
Receiving the Knowledge
The Wrong Diet
● Spiritual growth comes through receiving knowledge and feeding upon God’s Word.
● The “sincere milk of the Word” causes newborn babes in Christ to grow.
● Paul told the Corinthians they were still on milk because they couldn’t handle meat.
● The Hebrews had been believers long enough to be teachers but still needed to be taught first principles.
● “Milk” refers to the first principles of the doctrine of Christ.
● “Strong meat” belongs to those who are mature and have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
● Growing involves gaining knowledge of what you are in Christ and Christ in you.
● It includes understanding what Jesus did in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating at the Father’s right hand.
● It involves knowing His present-day ministry as Intercessor and your standing before the throne of God.
● It requires understanding that Satan and demons are dethroned powers that cannot rule over you.
● Many things cannot be preached because people are not ready for them.
● Paul said there were things he wanted to teach, but the Corinthians couldn’t bear them.
● The pure, simple Word of God must be given gradually so people can assimilate it.
● If real children of God haven’t grown, it is because they haven’t had the right diet.
● The author doesn’t blame the people but believes the ministry is at fault.
● Most people would rise to the level of the Word for them if they knew it.
● Being a ministry gift (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher) doesn’t mean you are a full-grown Christian.
● The author shut himself up with the Word for weeks, praying Paul’s prayers for the Ephesians.
● He prayed those prayers for himself every time he entered the church building.
● Nothing seemed to happen for a while, but then revelation began to come.
● Within 30 days, he had learned more than in 13-14 previous years of ministry combined.
● He realized what he had been preaching wasn’t even milk—just “bluejohn” (milk with the cream removed).
● Prayer must be built upon God’s Word, not just prayer alone.
● Knowledge of the Son of God is what causes us to become full-grown and mature.
The Place of Right Teaching
● We have failed to grow because of the lack of right teaching.
● God set teachers in the church and anoints them by the Spirit to teach.
● The Holy Ghost teaches us through anointed men, not just directly to individuals.
● Some people wrongly think, “No one can tell me anything—I’ve got the Holy Ghost.”
● That attitude is pure ignorance because God’s Word declares He set teachers in the Church.
● Much so-called teaching has been out of people’s minds rather than their hearts.
● Head knowledge of the Word is not the same as spiritual understanding.
● Many have turned up their noses at teaching because it has been cold and dead.
● But the anointing of the Spirit upon genuine teaching is alive.
● The author used to be a preacher who could preach Spurgeon’s sermons but didn’t like to teach.
● In 1943, God gave him a teaching gift in the parsonage of his church.
● He knew it in his spirit the moment it was born.
● To prove it, he started teaching a ladies’ prayer group on Wednesday afternoons.
● The anointing would come upon him greater than anything he had ever sensed.
● The group grew from seven or eight to fifteen or twenty, then to a full church building.
● People want to learn and want to know the Word of God.
● A woman told the author years later that those teaching sessions were all she had lived on for seven years.
● She had never heard any teaching since then—only preaching.
● Believers need teaching, and people of God desperately need it.
● Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues.
● Every time Jesus entered the synagogue, He taught.
● Down by the seashore, He sat down and taught the people from the ship.
● After His temptation, He returned in the Spirit’s power and taught in the synagogues.
● The synagogue corresponds to the church house of today, and Jesus taught there every time.
● The lack of right teaching is the primary reason we’ve failed to grow.
● God put teachers in the Church to feed us upon His Word and help us grow.
The Fault of Inadequate Teaching
● The Church has majored in minor things when it should have majored in major things.
● The Church has been strong in teaching man’s need of righteousness and inability to please God.
● It has been strong in denouncing sins, unbelief, world conformity, and lack of faith.
● But the Church has been sadly lacking in teaching what we are in Christ.
● It has failed to teach how righteousness and faith are available to believers.
● Many preachers tell you what you need but never tell you how to get it.
● A discouraged man heard a sermon on faith but was told nothing about how to receive it.
● He had faith all along—faith to be saved—but he didn’t know he could use that same faith for healing, answers to prayer, and receiving the Holy Ghost.
● The preaching he heard hindered him more than it helped him.
● A refined lady told the author he had given her back the joy of her salvation.
● Her pastor had beaten her over the head for nearly an hour instead of encouraging her to pray.
● She went to the altar and questioned her salvation, crying until 1:30 in the afternoon.
● The author encouraged people to pray and restored the joy she had as a newborn babe.
● One reason we haven’t grown is we’ve preached to believers like they were sinners.
● We’ve treated them and fed them like sinners until we’ve undermined their faith.
● We need to present God’s blessings and power so attractively that people become hungry for them.
● If you have to force people, it won’t be much of a blessing to them.
● The ministry has unconsciously fed congregations a psychology of unbelief.
● Instead of talking about what believers have, preachers talk about what they don’t have.
● They talk about politics instead of preaching the Gospel.
● Most of the songs we sing are not truly scriptural and put off redemption until after death.
● Hymns often suggest we can’t expect much here and will have to wander around like beggars.
● But it would be different now if you’d believe God!
● Eternal life is not something you’re going to have when you get to heaven—you have it right now.
● 1 John 5:13 says, “These things have I written unto you that believe… that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”
● We have passed from death unto life, and that “zoe” life is the God-kind of life.
● Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly in the present.
● If you don’t have this life now, you’ll never have it in the afterlife.
● Eternal life is a gift you receive now into your spirit.
● This Life changes your nature and makes you a new creature in Christ Jesus.
● Most hymns put off redemption and eternal life until after death.
● The Bible teaches we can have rest and peace right now.
● Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
● His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
● What are Christians yoked up with that makes life so heavy and burdensome?
● They have unconsciously gotten yoked with unbelief.
● When there is rest in your soul, it affects your body and your entire being.
● We don’t have to wait for victory—we have victory right now.
● “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
● We are overcomers now, not just when we get to heaven.
● Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
● Preaching to Christians like they’re sinners builds condemnation and prevents growth.
● Dr. John Alexander Dowie said, “Our songs are embalmed with unbelief.”
● We’ve sung those songs so much we think they’re true.
● It would be better not to sing than to sing a bunch of unbelief.
● The Bible says we are more than conquerors, not just conquerors.
● Paul didn’t say he was a conqueror because he was an apostle—he said: “we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
● This doesn’t mean you won’t have tests or trials or that everything will come easily.
● Paul was in prison with his feet in stocks but prayed and sang praises at midnight.
● On the ship to Rome, Paul heard from heaven and declared, “I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”
● Paul made three positive confessions: “I belong to God. I serve God. I believe God.”
● Most folks would say, “I’ve been trying to serve Him,” but Paul said, “I am serving Him.”
● The God whose I am—I belong to Him. I serve Him. I believe Him.
● This positive confession is what causes believers to rise instead of sink.
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You’ve identified the three stages of spiritual growth and learned what’s holding you back. Now examine yourself honestly. Are you a baby, child, or mature believer? Feed on God’s Word, walk in love, and refuse to stay where you are. Your growth starts today.
Finally, here is a question we’d love you to answer.
Have you ever stopped to examine which spiritual stage you’re currently in—baby, child, or mature believer?
We would love to hear from you. Please leave your answer and comment in the comment box below.
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