Spiritual Growth

Solomon's Porch Singapore Sermon Podcast

Last Sunday guest Pastor Philip preached on spiritual growth, and what God wants you become - and the stumbling blocks we face. Pastor Philip used Mathew 13:1-9 and 13:18-22. Jesus wants us to be fruitful, however, He also tells us that some of our attitudes are not conducive to our fruitfulness. Pastor Philip focused on three of these attitudes that block or spiritual growth:

i) Difficult times and discouragement undealt with (Matthew 13:19):

The enemy discourages and accuses you trying to covince you that God does not love you. After a while, if not deal with, this can lead to unbelief in God's goodness. God gives a the gifts to deal with discouragment, and we should be open and pro-active about dealing with discouragement and past hurts (e.g.seek council from pastors, other believers)

ii) Wrong motivation and interest in live (Mathew 13:20)::

Sometimes people hear the gospel but it never penetrates their roots. They get their sense of self-worth through other things than God. Psychologists tells us that people have some fundamental desires, namely, to be secure, to be value and to be significant. God fulfills all these desires: by keeping us secure, by giving us His only Son and by having created us for a specific purpose. However, some people seeks to fulfill their needs through thing like performance, control or friendships and nice words

iii) Making an unbiblical response to possession:

Some people save and save their money. This can lead to not putting your trust in God (worrying about every day matters) or giving possession too high a status. According to the bible money is a gift from God to be used for blessing and impact.

An attitude which is conducive to spiritual growth, when hearing the Word of God does the following:

i) It gives full attention to God

ii) It seeks to know what the Word means for you and apply to your life.

Pastor Philip points out that 10 percent of life you can’t control rest of 90 percent is how you react. For instance if something unfortunate happens, like your daughter spilling coffee on your shirt in the morning. How do you react? Do you react in anger or in the Christian way in loving and understanding. We need to understand what the Word of God means for us. 'Understanding' in this context means 'insight', trying to understand what means for my life. Every time we hear the Word of God, we need to ask ourselves what does this mean for my life. If people just sitting through the sermon then it is not working. Billy Graham, when asked what he would have done different in life, responded by saying I would have preached less and study the Word and pray more. It is important to remember it does not matter how we start off in life but how we finish.