When you accept the Lord, you will receive the Holy Spirit as gift. Then, you will be spiritually like a new-born baby and continue to grow in faith. You will grow as having the faith of little children, children, young men, and then that of a father as written in 1 John 2:12-14. However, the growth rate will vary across individuals. Let's now consider the keys to spiritual growth and try to achieve the full measure of faith that is pleasing God.
Don't be impatient, and just follow the basics.
To have greater faith, you should be certain that you can reach full assurance of faith in God's love. If you are impatient and think your faith is so little, this will hinder you from growing in faith.
To grow in faith, you should first discover yourselves through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But if you just impatiently want to increase faith, fleshly thoughts may come to you first. Then, you cannot hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, and you will feel just distressed and fail to discover yourself.
It even stops you from receiving strength to cast off your shortcomings although you found them. And you will feel more distressed because you know you have to change.
Spiritual faith is given by God, and the grace and strength for you to become sanctified are given by God. Thinking, 'I will achieve this level of faith by that time,' or rushing yourselves does not lead you to greater faith. Rather, you should proceed step by step to the measure of faith God wants (Romans 12:3).
The first step is following the Christian basics. Worshipping in spirit and truth without idle thoughts or dozing off, praying fervently without ceasing, praising with heart, and reading the Bible every day, those are the basics. Such deeds will become the source of your faith. Therefore, in order to increase faith, you should ask for the grace and strength of God to cast away what you have not cast away and do what you couldn't do, and you should start smallest things with faith (Luke 11:11-13).
In addition, you should check how much you have kept in mind the message delivered in the services and how hard you tried to live by it. Trying to live by the Word, you can feel God's love and His loving intervention in leading you to become sanctified.
Learn the word of God and pray.
In order to receive strength to change by the Word of God, you should realize the love of God first. Only in that love can you discover your true self and be strengthened to live by the truth.
To realize His love, you should both learn the Word of God and pray. Only when you listen to the Word of God can you understand perfect faith, discern between the truth and untruth, check your faith, and understand what you have to change.
However, unless you pray, although you listen to the Word, you will not gain spiritual realization. Or, you won't be able to apply the message to your life. Without prayer, you won't be given any strength to practice the message, and you may feel like it is a burden to you. But if you pray, the word of God will come to you in goodness, and you will feel the love of God who lets you realize His heart and renews you.
If you realize the love of God who always wants to give you the best things, your prayer will change. You will not just repeat, "Sorry. Forgive me," just because you know what you should have done. You will not be coerced to pray, and you won't pray, "Let me throw this away and that as well."
You will pray as the following: "Father God who created me and gives me good things all the time, I love You. So, I want to act upon Your will. Help me cast off all sins and evil because I want to become the source of Your joy and comfort. Give me Your grace and strength so that I can come close to You, Father." In this prayer, you can feel deeper love of God and achieve the greater faith.
Don't feel disheartened comparing yourselves with others.
If your heart is full of the love of God, you won't compare yourself with others. You will believe God loves you, and you love Him as well. The belief will let you be generous enough to share the love with other people. However, if you don't feel this love of God, you will compare yourself with others. If you think you are ahead of others in the race of faith, you may feel relieved. But if you feel like you are behind others, you may feel nervous, even sad and disheartened.
If you try your best in your measure of faith, however, you can think in goodness about everything. You can love others to the extent that you are filled with the love of God. Because you love them, you will feel happy when they get recognition and praise as if you got the recognition. You can run vigorously in the love of God and believe that you will reach the full measure of faith.
If others are ahead of you, you will feel thankful, and if you are ahead of them, you will feel grateful as well because you can pray for and encourage them. Thus, long to fill your heart with the love of God and to rejoice with the truth in every matter. If you want to change in action, you should first seriously consider how much you try to love God and how much you long for His grace.
If you are strengthened by the Holy Spirit, no matter how infertile and deficient your heart soil is, you can change your heart. First check whether you fix your eyes only on New Jerusalem with love for God and offer up fiery prayer to God who called and has been leading you, will perfect you, and will lead you to New Jerusalem (1 Thessalonians 5:24). By doing so, you can become perfect fruit of God.
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