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Beginning With God: The Role of Faith in Spiritual Growth

Everyone knows that faith plays a vital role in one’s spiritual growth, but practically speaking, it occupies too much or too little of one’s understanding.

This statement is true. If your conception of spiritual growth is nothing more than self-effort, you will not experience life transformation. From Childhood To Christhood book on spiritual journey and spiritual growth by Jocelyne Ranucci implied that true power is to transform, transcend, and create a perfect life—an ability she believes is innate to all.

In the Christian life, certain truths are either so formative or fragile that you may require special assistance in learning to hold on to the shopping cart of faith. As a mature Christian, you are used to toting these truths around like a handbag (such as the security of your salvation), but young Christians need to develop the spiritual muscles they take for granted.

A partial list is found below of these foundational truths that require the exertion of faith and may require your assistance. In these areas, the need for trust is most acute, and where the lack of it will have the most incredible ramifications.

Forgiveness and Faith. Few of the significant battles in life are ever won overnight. So it is alright to assume that you will see many spiritual failures. It might be a stunningly gross one or a minor disappointment, but they will desperately need to experience God’s forgiveness in either case.

The problem with many sins is that it is challenging to feel cleansed, not criticize yourself, and not suspect that God’s still in a rage over the incident even after you have confessed to them. When you sin, you instinctively feel someone must pay the price. No one gets off easy.

Of course, Christ has already paid the price, which makes this all irrelevant. What is needed is confession. The problem is that you can confess your sins while employing faith. Faith requires a choice of the will to believe that God has forgiven you through Christ’s death while creating a deaf ear to doubts. Remember, God is more merciful than you can imagine, and believe that through Christ’s death, humanity is ultimately forgiven, and “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us”(Psalm 103:12).

Faith (that God) Can Make You Holy. Here is another truth into which confidence must dip its teeth. One must choose to believe that your temptations and struggles are not unique. Therefore never insurmountable, unfixable, or unforgivable. It is a lie to think that any temptation is irresistible or that you are special in any of your struggles.

God always provides what people need to remain holy, even if it is simply an escape hatch. Every disciple is tempted to believe that they deviate from the norm in some area of their lives. Satan desires for you to feel alone. This will let you think of yourself as having unique temptations or trials. Forfeit faith in this area, and you have dangerously inflated the power of sin.

Faith That All Things Work For The Good. The next battle of faith is for all those who have experienced damage within themselves or their lives. All because of sin. God can take any minute plant, and from it grows a garden. While it may be impossible to wonder how God can bring good out of your train wreck of present and past failures, this is hardly a limiting factor. 

God is limitless to redeem evil. Everything in your past can be taken and used for good. God’s mercy can transform every failure (like Peter’s failures). Every skill (like Paul’s weaknesses) can be a channel for God to show His strength. Though you must persevere in faith, and sometimes for years, the equation will always add up: crap + God = life. And faith is how God enters the equation.

Faith In God’s Goodness. When things are going wrong, people justify their sin with self-pity. They think, “Well, I’m going to do this because God isn’t taking care of me anyway, and rather than helping, He’s allowing my life to disintegrate.” Your scheming mind designs such reasoning to bring us to a sense of entitlement to sin.

You must fight the battle to deny or disbelieve God’s goodness with faith, never giving an inch. Everything God does in your life is motivated by love. And any minor twist of that truth is a lie that can have serious consequences.

Growing Faith

Faith is like a muscle; it bulges by lifting loads. Loads are the resistance, the doubts, mental whispers, and circumstances that tell people the opposite of what faith must believe.

Alternatively, faith grows through new challenges where they need to trust and rely on God. With courageous steps, God shows Himself faithful, and their faith grows.

Through the strain and stress of faith development, the truths discussed in this article are the most common fracture points and the places you may most need your encouragement to wind yourself up the hill of faith.

  • Posted by  Jocelyne Ranucci
  • Spirituality
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