How to GROW Closer to God

Posted On May 22, 2022

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

2 Peter 3:18 NIRV

I’ve been busy this past week making my summer to-do list. I have big plans to catch up on work stuff, house projects, and books I want to read, but one of my main goals is to work on my spiritual growth. While thinking about exactly what this should entail, I came up with four things to focus on:

• Gratitude
• Repentance
• Offering
• Worship

These are areas that could use a little strengthening in my life. I thought I’d share them in case the same is true for you, too. By making an effort to reinforce these doctrines in our lives, my hope is that we will all learn how to GROW closer to God.

Gratitude

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLT

Would you like to have more peace and joy in your life? Would you like to have the strength to face difficult circumstances with courage? Would you like to live in hope for the future? I know I would. I also know all of this begins with developing a grateful heart. Unfortunately, gratitude has been a weak spot in my spiritual journey for a long time. I tend to focus on the negative things in my life more than the positive ones, and this has been taking its toll. I have good intentions of changing this behavior, but I haven’t made it a priority. So this is the first item in my list.

Now before we get too far into this week’s discussion, I feel I should mention that spiritual growth is not something we can accomplish on our own. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit. But that doesn’t mean we are just supposed to sit back and do nothing. We must cooperate with Him and create opportunities for Him to work in us. So the first thing we can do to help Him develop a thankful heart in us is to practice gratitude.

As with anything else, developing a new spiritual habit takes conscious effort at first. We must force ourselves to look for things to thank God for every day in every circumstance, whether we feel like it or not. This may seem awkward at first. When I took voice lessons, I remember the way my instructor explained how to develop vibrato in my voice: he said to just fake it! Imitate other singers who have vibrato. Pretend your voice is that way naturally. So I did. And you know what? It worked. Now that’s just how I sing.

The same is true for developing gratitude and other spiritual skills as well. At first, we may just have to fake it. To learn to be thankful in all circumstances, we can imitate others who have this ability. We can pretend we are naturally grateful people. We can look for the positive ways God can bring good out of any situation. We can meditate on His promises. We can think about how He develops our character through trials. We can enjoy the beauty of nature. We can cherish the time we have with our loved ones. We can give thanks for our food, water, clothing, and homes. And we can take time every day to appreciate the greatest gift of all: Christ’s sacrifice to save us from sin and death. As Christians, no temporary problem we face can compare to the heavenly paradise that awaits us. And in our earthly life, we always have the gift of God’s presence. Let’s remember to thank Him for it!

Learning to do all of this takes time and effort. But as we practice being grateful, with the help of the Holy Spirit we will become grateful people. And as we learn to focus on the goodness of God, we will naturally want to draw closer to Him.

“Gratitude, expressing it and surrounding yourself with it, is truly life changing. God’s Word and His promises are full of His many blessings, giving us countless reasons to voice our gratitude and thankfulness. . . . You are encouraged to plant your roots deep into the wonder of God’s blessings, the steadfastness of His love, and the truth of His faithfulness.”

The Weekly Gratitude Project

Repentance

“But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we’ve done wrong.”

1 John 1:9 CEB

Every time one of my daily readings talks about confession or repentance, I get a little nervous. When I began getting serious about my spiritual journey almost three years ago, I made a decision that I would do my best to apply everything I read each day as through God were speaking to me personally. So each time I came to a reading or Scripture passage that instructed me to confess something, I read the next one with apprehension to see if it told me exactly what I needed to confess. Usually, it was spot on, and it wasn’t something I would have realized on my own.

Over time, I began to understand that God was leading me one step at a time. I never once felt overwhelmed with guilt or shame by His instruction, just gently corrected. Each time I applied what He taught me, I moved one step closer to Him and became just a little bit more like Christ. One of the first lessons He taught me was that He does not expect or require perfection. All He asks for is faith and trust. That’s what made Abraham, Moses, David, and other biblical heroes great. It wasn’t their strength of character, their amazing skill set, or their powerful presence. It was faith, trust, and a humble willingness to accept correction.

Repentance just means to turn back to God. When we are harboring sin, guilt, or shame in our hearts, we are only hurting ourselves. God knows what we’ve done. We aren’t fooling Him by pretending we haven’t sinned. What we are doing is trying to hide from Him, to turn away. But we can’t move forward if we aren’t keeping our eyes fixed on Christ. Just as a sunflower turns to face the sun, we, too, must turn to the Son if we want to bloom into the amazing people He knows we can be. So if you have anything you are ashamed of, give it to Him. He’s not waiting to scold you. He’s waiting to take you in His arms and forgive you.

In case you’re wondering, I did get another confession reading recently. And, yes, I got a little nervous. But none of my subsequent readings revealed anything specific to confess. I spent the day praying and meditating about this, asking God what He was trying to tell me, and I think it was this: We are in a battle every day in our minds, and confession is one of our strongest weapons. The enemy loves to prey on our weaknesses. He loves to entice us to sin and then immediately make us feel overwhelmingly guilty about it. He tries to make us believe we are too far gone to be of any use to God, so we might as well give up. This is a lie! God will never forsake us and He will never stop loving us. There is nothing we can do that will change that. (See Romans 8:38-39.)

So I believe God was trying to teach me that confession, like gratitude, should become a daily habit. By doing this every day, we let Christ renew us and refresh us. We keep the negative thoughts at bay, which frees us to focus on the unstoppable love of our Father and the amazing things He has planned for us.

“God doesn’t call the equipped — He equips the called. He works through fallen, broken people to show His glory. So turn from your sin and follow Him. Trust Him to make something awesome of your life . . . . “

Charles F. Stanley, God’s Purpose for Your Life

Offering

” . . . for you have been chosen by God himself—you are priests of the King, you are holy and pure, you are God’s very own—all this so that you may show to others how God called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”

1 Peter 2:9 TLB

These last two sections, offering and worship, are closely related: We offer ourselves to God as an act of worship. Let’s talk about offering first. I’m not just talking about putting money in the offering plate, although that’s part of it. What God wants from us isn’t just our money, it’s us. He wants every part of our lives, all that we have, and all that we are.

When we accept Christ as our Savior, we also accept Him as Lord of our lives. This means we belong to Him. He chose us before we were born to be instruments of His light in the world. We will never fulfill our purpose in life apart from Him. So we must offer up every part of our lives for His use. We must empty ourselves of our own desires and let Him fill us with His. We can’t grow closer to God while also holding part of ourselves back. We’ve got to be all in!

This all sounds good, but if you’re like me, it may be easier said than done. In my heart I want to give everything to God, but do I really do this on a daily basis? Do I offer Him all my time, all my talents, all my possessions, all my hopes, and all my dreams? Honestly, no, I don’t think I do. But that’s what He requires. So that’s what I plan to work on. How about you?

“You can take hold of the fulfilling, fruitful, history-changing relationship with the Lord that few people experience — not because God limits his availability, presence, or authority but because so few commit themselves to knowing Him in such profound intimacy and fellowship. . . . The Lord is infinite, and when He pours Himself into you, you take on His power, wisdom, and strength. There is no limit to how He can multiply your efforts to accomplish His purposes.”

Charles F. Stanley; God’s Purpose for Your Life

Worship

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Mark 12:30 NIV

God wants us to offer Him every part of our lives as an act of worship. But what exactly is worship? Rick Warren defines it as “bringing pleasure to God.” This includes praising God, thanking God, and singing to God. It includes trusting God and obeying God. It includes studying and applying His Word. It includes spending time with Him in prayer. It includes helping others and dedicating our lives to His service. Basically, anything we do that pleases God is worship.

So worship is living for God. It means we invite Him into every part of our day and into every area of our lives. It means being aware of His presence at all times. And it means surrendering to His will instead of our own. This doesn’t come naturally. We must develop this habit. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a long way to go!

So where do we begin? I think the main thing is to keep moving in the right direction. Every time we become aware of an area of our lives that’s not fully surrendered to God, we can start there. Is your prayer life weak? Then learn how to strengthen it. Not giving as much time or money as you feel you should? Then give a little more. Tend to be a worrier? Pick something you would normally be anxious about and choose to trust God with it instead. Holding on to dreams or desires you’re not sure are in line with His will? Then surrender them to Him, willing to let go of them if necessary, and see what happens. Don’t try to do everything at once. Let the Holy Spirit lead you to areas of your life He wants you to work on. And then choose to do so. As long as we are willing to listen, He will keep guiding us.

God has given us everything we have out of His love for us. He wants us to offer it back to Him out of our love for Him. This is hard. It’s overwhelming. But thankfully, we don’t have to do it alone. The Holy Spirit will help us. And the more we learn how to do this, the more we will grow. We will grow closer to God and closer to fulfilling His plan for our lives. And then get ready! When we let God take control, we’ll be amazed at what He will be able to accomplish through us!

“God wants all of you. God doesn’t want a part of your life. He asks for all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. God is not interested in halfhearted commitment, partial obedience, and the leftovers of your time and money. He desires your full devotion, not little bits of your life. . . . The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.”

Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life

This week’s Scripture passages focus on how to grow closer to God through Gratitude, Repentance, Offering, and Worship. Learning to do all of these things is hard work, and it will take deliberate effort to develop these habits. But why would we want to live any other way? We don’t have to be perfect. God will help us. We just have to be willing to keep moving forward and trust the One who makes all things GROW!

“Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ
and be taken forward to maturity . . . “

Hebrews 6:1 NIV

References:

• Stanley, Charles F. God’s Purpose for Your Life: 365 Devotions. Thomas Nelson, 2020.
• Warren, Rick. The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Zondervan, 2002.
• The Weekly Gratitude Project: A Challenge to Journal, Reflect, and Grow a Grateful Heart. Zondervan, 2020.

Images:

• Plant in Sunlight featured image by eko pramono from Pixabay
• Seedlings image by congerdesign from Pixabay
• Succulents image by Eva Elijas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/succulent-plants-in-pot-shaped-soil-7127801/
• Sunflower image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay
• Poppy image by jplenio from Pixabay
• Dandelion image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay
• GROW image by Nasah Rwafa from Pixabay