Today we begin our new series entitled How We Grow. We’ll spend the next several weeks focusing on some spiritual practices God uses for our spiritual growth.

When you look at how God has created us, it’s evident that He expects us to grow. We can infer that because He has given us a tremendous capacity for growth:

• This lifelong process of growth begins at the moment of our conception. We are knit together in the womb, as it says in the Psalms. When Sunny was pregnant, I was fascinated by this little book we had that described how our children were developing on a week-by-week basis. Our God-given capacity for growth is evident from the beginning.
• Maturing is more than a physical process. We know that emotional growth is a huge part of our development, too. There are many good resources available to help us grow in our relationships, to become emotionally healthy.
• And this capacity for growth extends to our spiritual lives, too. Ephesians 4:15 says we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. God intends for us to grow in Christlikeness — this is the most important growth of all.

The question we’re trying to answer in this series is, “How do we grow spiritually?“

• The answer is that we grow through the work of God, first and foremost. He is the One who does the growing in us. We need to say that up front.
• But it’s also true that we have a part to play as well. We can certainly thwart that growth God is seeking to bring about in us. 1 Thess. 5:19 says Do not quench the Spirit. Willful disobedience can quench the work of the Spirit — kind of like spraying RoundUp on your grass. We can definitely undermine God’s attempts to produce spiritual growth in us.
• But on the flip side, we can also put ourselves in position to experience God’s power as He tries to grow us spiritually. That’s what this series is all about. We’ll be talking about the spiritual disciplines for the next few weeks. These are the tried and true practices that enable our spiritual growth. Think of these as catalysts, the means through which God grows our souls.

The importance of practice

We don’t grow when we do many things a few times. We grow when we do a few things many times. That’s the key to growth. Anything worth doing requires practice.

• If you want to be a better piano player, you need to hone your craft through repetition.
• If you want to shoot a basketball like Steph Curry, you need to take hundreds of shots each day.

We understand the importance of repetition and practice as one of the keys to growth. So it comes as no surprise that the same principle holds true when it comes to spiritual growth. These spiritual practices will aid us in our spiritual growth.

As we go through this series on the spiritual disciplines, I’ll be returning to this key point over and over: you have to believe in God to practice these disciplines properly. I know that sounds like a fairly obvious thing to say, but let me explain:

• You have to believe that God uses these practices to grow our souls. Otherwise, you won’t experience their full benefit.
• Take fasting, for example. Intermittent fasting is really popular these days. Physicians have extolled the health benefits of fasting for years. That’s great — and it has no bearing whatsoever on the spiritual practice of fasting. If you don’t believe in God, skipping a meal isn’t going to cause you to grow spiritually. You may experience some physical benefit, but you’ll miss out on the spiritual element of biblical fasting.
• So the question I want you to be asking yourself over the next few weeks is, “Do I really believe that God can use this practice for my spiritual growth?” That’s really the key question — and only you can answer that for yourself.
• But once you open yourself up to that possibility, look out. God is about to do something with that tiny mustard seed of faith.
• Do you believe in a God who can use intentional spiritual practices to grow your soul?

Nearly 400 years ago, an author named William Gurnall wrote, “The saint’s sleeping time is Satan’s tempting time.”

He’s absolutely right. And these spiritual disciplines keep us awake to God.

These spiritual practices help us pay attention to God, to see what He’s doing in our lives.