Firstly I need to state that spiritual maturity is not measured by the amount of bible knowledge you have, or the amount of spiritual gift you have, or the kind of supernatural and mystical experiences you are having. Rather it is determined by the measure of life (Christ) that you have. One thing I have learned over the years of studying Christ is that spiritual maturity comes from abiding in Christ and being occupied with him.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser… Abide in me [vitally connected with me], and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” (John 15:1,4).

When Jesus used the word ‘abide’ he gave a picture of a plant. A plant and it branches stick to where they are and remain connected to the stem and roots. That picture gives us an idea of how we are to stick to Christ and remain connected to him. The more we remain connected to him the more life will flow into us, and the more life flows into us the more mature you will become. So the amount of fruit we have is proportional to the amount of life that flows into us, and the amount of life that flows into us is proportional to how much we have been abiding (see John 15:1-10).

Unlike plants we humans are very active, we can’t just remain (abide) in a place doing nothing. It is only the dead that can just lie at a place, doing nothing and never move. For us to remain at a place we must be actively doing something, otherwise we get bored and move away from that place. It is an activity that keeps us stationed at a place, and it is our occupation that determines where we settle. So to abide in Christ we have to be actively engaging him, and when we come to a place where we are so occupied with Christ that he becomes our occupation then we would find ourselves completely settling in him, and that would result to the most rapid spiritual growth. You will agree with me that we Christians have a great measure to grow in Christ, therefore would it not be amazing if this growth becomes very rapid.

Here is how it works; the more you abide in Christ the faster you grow, and the more spiritually mature you become. Spiritual maturity is not determined by how long you have been saved but how much you abide in Christ. There is this social website I visit, the website calculates how long you spend online in it. It calculates it in minutes, then hours, and if you have spent up to 24 hours it covert it into a day. So when you login you can see how many how many hours you have spent on the website, and it present it this way, “You are 37 day old on this site”. So for example person A might be physically older than the other and person B in real life, and person A had created an account on that website long before person B did.

However, person B is older than person A on this social website because he has spent more time online than person A. This is how it is in Christ, we are like plants and the longer we abide the more we grow. Some people get born again and spend more time in the flesh than trying to abide in Christ, as a result their spiritual growth becomes supers slow. Another thing is that that the flesh has a way of draining the little life you have received from abiding. So some Christians never really grow at all cause they spend so much time in the flesh that it drains away all they’ve gotten from abiding.

If you ask an average Christian about how to grow spiritually they would tell you that you have to always read your bible and pray. When you are reading your bible or praying you are actively engaging Christ, and by so doing you are abiding and life is flowing into you which causes growth. However, many Christians do this religiously and are not truly engaging Christ, they are just carrying a ritual that their pastor told them to do. Active engagement is abiding and abiding result to growth. So if we are pursuing rapid spiritual growth then we must pursue a more steady abiding, and the fastest spiritual growth is when we settle completely in Christ, in order to achieve that we must have our occupation in Christ.

For many of us living in Lagos, the main reason we are here is because our occupation is here. If we have our occupation somewhere else there is a high tendency that we would move and settle wherever that place is. But we are here in Lagos because we feel that the land is rich, you can easily get something doing and start making a living. When we have a very poor Christ we tend to be bored and then we go get occupied with the flesh. We need a very rich Christ, one filled with many riches to explore, things to keep us occupied to the extent that we abide and even settle in him. Yes, we are born again Christians and we are in Christ, yet most of us spend more time in the flesh than in Christ, and the major cause of that is because we have a very poor Christ. First we need a revelation of how rich Christ is, this is so important that God specially called Paul to unveil to the body of Christ the unsearchable riches of Christ

“Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” (Eph 3:8 ).

Christ is the word of God, but he is also the power of God (1Cor 1:24), and together with that he is the prophetic, for the scriptures says he is the revelation of God, and the testimony of Christ is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10). Christ is the wisdom of God, our righteousness, our grace, and the door to God and His fullness, which of course involves the supernatural. So you see that there are many riches to explore, they are so many that one would not know where to start from. And to abide to the extent that you settle completely in Christ and grow most rapidly you need him to become your occupation. You need to get to a place where you are occupied with Christ all day long, and luckily for us this Christ is so rich that it makes it easy for us to be occupied with him all day long.

Now you may begin to ask how possible is that, can one be occupied with Christ all day long? Well, you are occupied with your flesh all day long, you are either working to feed and cater for the flesh or indulging yourself in things that pleases your flesh. And if we can spend all day occupied with the flesh why can’t we spend all day occupied with Christ. So we are slowly migrating from having the flesh as our occupation to having Christ as our occupation (this does not mean we are to become pastors). The scripture says we are to work out our salvation, salvation means deliverance, to be delivered from a tyrant king and a cruel kingdom and be transferred into a benevolent king and a land flowing with milk and honey.

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” (Col 1:13).

In the spirit we are already saved, we have been transferred into Christ and we abide there, yet still in our everyday life on earth we still need to migrate out of the flesh and into Christ. This is why the scripture says work out your salvation, it means stop living by the flesh, stop being so occupied by the flesh, rather have Christ as your occupation. So we are to gradually migrate from having the flesh as our occupation to having Christ as our occupation. So how can this be achieved? Simple, by diving in and start exploring the unsearchable riches of Christ. Do not pick and choose otherwise you will limit yourself, get bored and return back to being occupied with the flesh.

Many Christians would say, “No, I am only interested in Christ the word of God”. They limit themselves to just one aspect of Christ hereby increasing the temptation to be more occupied with the flesh. We need to open our hands wild and gather as much riches as we can to explore. Let out hands be full, do not limit yourself, become so full that you have no time for the flesh, no time to indulge its cravings. This is the reason I designed a course titled Oneness With God, it involves actively exploring the riches of Christ from the word (revelation) to developing Christ-like nature, and then to exploring the supernatural. You are left with so much to explore that little by little you realize you don’t have time for the flesh anymore.

The flesh would fight this change, it won’t go down without a fight, it would do everything to distract you and discourage you from getting so occupied with Christ. This is where having a couch and a group of people doing it together with you is so much of an advantage. You need all the help you can get, you must realize that the most important thing for you as a Christian is your spiritual growth, and now that you know how it works get to it. May the Lord strengthen you.

If you are interested in joining my course you can contact me on Whatsapp. Here is my Whatsapp contact: 08103727677

We indeed have a long way to grow, and in order to attain the fullness the Christ desire for us we must learn to increase the pace of of growth

We have to understand that as we seek spiritual growth there is the presence of an opposing force (the world and the flesh)

If the opposing force (the world and the flesh) is greater than the energy you are putting into your spiritual growth then no matter how much you are putting into your spiritual growth it would yield nothing. You will end up not growing at all. And indeed the opposing force are very great. Look around you and you will see, you don't need to be told how strong this force is.

Then if the opposing force is that strong then the energy you are putting into your spiritual growth must be stronger otherwise it would yield nothing. This is why sitting in church every Sunday and passively watching some people perform on the altar is not enough. Reading and listening to teachings is very good, still more energy is required. The opposing force is very great and as such the energy we are putting must be far greater.

We must be actively engaging Christ, vigorously exploring his riches. And it would be very helpful if you have a group to do it with, and a coach to push you to stress your limit and put in your maximum. You can do much more than you think you can, you are stronger than you think you are, and with a little push you will realise how much fight you can put up against the opposing force and grow speedily.

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As Christians there is nothing as important as our spiritual growth

Happy Sunday

The Lord is calling us higher

A glorious Christianity

Happy Sunday beloved of God. Be blessed

... till we all come in unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, measuring up to the full and complete stature of Christ.

If a plant is not growing then it is dying

GALATIANS 2:20
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Gal 2:20).

Since I have been quoting this scripture I have only focused on explaining one part of it—the part of being crusified so that Christ might live in us. But this verse also unveils how Christ is being lived out in us. It says, "the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God". The life which is Christ living in me is lived by faith in the Son of God. This statement becomes clearer when we understand what faith in Christ Jesus is.

"Looking away [from ourselves, and from every other thing] unto Jesus the beginning and the end of our faith," (Heb 12:2).

Our faith starts and end with Christ, it is nothing else but Christ. It is all about Christ—yes, Christ and Christ alone. It starts with Christ and end with Christ. Our faith is about the reality of Christ, it is about all that which constitute Christ. And to have faith in Christ simply means to look away from yourself, from the self life, from the world, from all that is of you, man and the world, yes look away from everything, and then fix your eyes on the reality in Christ, on that which starts and ends with Christ, that which is purely Christ, constituting of nothing else but Christ. But you can only fix your eyes when you have gain sight.

It is not possible to fix your eyes on something you cannot see, something that your eyes have not apprehended. So in order to fix your eyes you must first get the revelation. Here we have Christ as our faith and we are to fix our eyes on this Christ, but in order to do that you must be able to see him, you must get a revelation of him and have your eyes open to see.

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” (2Cor 4:6).

In order to see you must pray to God for light, while at the same time focusing your gaze on Christ. The scripture above says the light of the knowledge of God is displayed or is found on the face of Jesus. The more you focus on something the clearer you see, so you are to focus your gaze on Christ and ask God for light. As you do this your sight becomes clearer and clearer. But we’ve jumped a very important step, “Looking away”. You cannot fix your gaze or see clearer if you are unable to look away. This brings us to the cross where we experience the fellowship of his suffering and die to everything that has been drawing your attention and attracting your gaze.

Man is naturally self-centered, so focus on himself. His eyes is fix on himself: what he wants, what he likes and doesn't like, what makes him happy, what he finds pleasurable, what he enjoys, what excites him, what he desires, and what looks pleasant to him. All of that fills his gaze together with the issues of life: how to survive, what to eat, what to wear, where to sleep, the many worries in life, responsibilities to fulfill, and etc. Yes, there is just so much contending for our attention and gaze, but we must look away from it all. This is extremely difficult because the flesh is instinctively designed for survival, it's impossible to make him look away from the issue of survival. That is why we must die to the flesh.

Oh, the vast majority of Christians have no idea what this means. Yes, you have heard people preach and teach it, you may have probably read a lot about it, but look at yourself, your eyes is still fixed on the issue of survival. This is the most difficult thing to achieve, and it requires great brokenness—to be broken so completely and brought to such emptiness that you lose interest in living, you lose interest in surviving, you just don't care anymore, whether you die or live is no longer an issue for you, all you care about, all you are interested in is Christ. Yes, the reality in Christ, the desire of Christ, the life of Christ in you, these are your only interest. You just want to know Christ, to know more about the reality in Christ, to have this reality become clearer and clearer to you, to apprehend the life of Christ in you and have it apprehend the whole of your being.

When many realizes this is the price one has to pay to live an authentic Christian life they tend to run away. You want to have life and have Christ, you want to be like a normal person, going about the issue of life in one hand following Christ on the other hand. No, it must be Christ alone, for he is Lord over all, filling all in all till there is nothing else left but him. Anyway, for those who dears to venture into a kind of life that consumes you completely, stripping you of everything till there is nothing left but Christ, you can continue reading.

You would have to seek a revelation of your death to self. On that I am hoping to write a book titled "Coming To The End Of Self". This book is going to be very hard to read, but if you would dear to read it, allowing yourself digest the words as you pursue the revelation of your baptism into Christ's death, then you will develop a broken spirit and come to a point where you are able to look away from self and the issue of life, and fix your eyes on Christ. Now, back to living by faith in Christ Jesus. The Christ life is lived by fixing your eyes on Christ (on the revelation of Christ you've apprehended).

As you look you are being influenced by the things you see, those revelation begins compelling you into certain actions and way of life. Whatever you are compelled to do as a result of looking is Christ living in you. This is why we must be careful that the revelation we are looking at is purely Christ, if it is corrupt in anyway by things that are not Christ then whatever action it compels you to do would not be purely Christ living in you. So when we live by yielding to the actions compelled by the revelation of Christ as we fix our eyes upon it, that is how to live by faith in the Son of God.

Happy Sunday

Our Spiritual growth is the most important thing, and I have been teaching practical exercises that have proven effective in helping fellow Christians grow in the riches of Christ

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Happy Sunday

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The most important thing to do every Christian should be his spiritual growth

Great thread, how on earth did I miss this? Spiritual maturity is real and scriptural.

I read Kenneth E. Hagin's book "Growing Up Spiritually and saw the reality of growing up in thle sprit man.
The word of God is spirit food. Just like you eat in the physical, you need food in the spiritual. In the physical you don't eat so much and lie down on a bed all day in the physical but are programmed to earn your next meal through some exercises, so is the spiritual also. You exercise the food that has gotten in to you via eating(word study) and digestion (meditation) in prayer altar.

Oh, bless you brother

many of us including pastors grow religiously not spiritually

Exactly brother. It's sad how many of us grow in all the wrong ways

Life is what really matters, we must grow in the life

Merry Christmas

Happy Sunday

Amen