Explore the different paths to spiritual maturity in today’s world with Charles Stanley as we dissect the reasons behind stagnation in faith. This episode provides a blueprint for assessing personal spiritual growth and developing a continuous desire for God’s word. Through scriptural references and profound insights, Charles Stanley guides listeners on how to courageously self-examine and uncover spiritual blockers. By understanding and accepting God’s unconditional love, the sermon invites you to confront personal challenges and strive toward a freeing spiritual journey.
Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, June 30th. Is something blocking you from maturing in Christ? Think about that as you listen to part one of your spiritual growth.
SPEAKER 01 :
When a child is born, we expect that child to mature physically and all the parts grow as they should and grow into either manhood or womanhood. When they do not grow like that, then we know that something is wrong. And we would say that they are stunted in their growth or something inside of them is not working right. Because if it were, then they would just grow up like everyone else. The same thing is true in a person’s spiritual life. When a person is saved, they should grow in their understanding of the things of God, grow in their relationship to Him, serve Him in some fashion. That is, their life would be a continuous life of growing. But oftentimes that’s not true. And when Paul wrote to the Ephesians in that fourth chapter, he talked about growing up into Christ, that is, growing up in our relationship with Him. And in First Peter, the second chapter, the Scripture talks about, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. And in Second Peter, the third chapter, in the eighteenth verse, he talks about growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. A believer growing in their spiritual maturity is the only natural thing. Now, a person can be saved and oftentimes begin to grow immediately. They begin to read the Word of God. They begin to pray. They go to church. They listen carefully. They take notes. In other words, they begin to grow, and there’s an excitement about their Christian life. And they just grow and grow and grow, and God uses them in all different kind of ways. There are other believers who are born again. That’s the beginning of their spiritual life. And they get excited to begin with, and they grow for a little while, and then they stagnate. It’s like they don’t get any further. That’s all they’re going to give. That’s all the Bible reading they’re going to do. Not all that excited about talking to God and praying, except in times of trouble. And so, if you ask them, where are you in your spiritual life? They’d say, well, I don’t know. Well, are you happy with it? Well, sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. Are you growing? Well, I don’t know what growing means. And so, they sort of stagnate. And one of the worst testimonies There is, is for a believer to be stagnant in their growth, which means they’ve lost their peace and their joy, their happiness, and their real genuine contentment. And they’ve lost their excitement about being a follower of Jesus Christ. And then, of course, there are those people who get saved, and it’s as if they step into the kingdom of God and the door of eternal security is closed, and that’s where they are. They just never do grow. They go to church. They pray sometimes. They read the Bible sometimes. They may give a little bit once in a while. But that’s all on the outside. There’s nothing going on on the inside. And the Scripture says that God predestined, that is, He predetermined before you were ever saved to conform you to the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. That’s the predestined will of God. And so, when that’s not happening, something is not right. So, if I were to ask you today, would you call yourself a growing Christian or not? And it’s interesting, in all those three verses that I just gave you a few moments ago, the word grow and growing is a present active imperative tense of the verb, which means to grow and keep growing and to advance and keep advancing, something that is continually going on. Not something that just happens, but something that is continuously. That doesn’t mean that you and I grow equally every single day or every week or every month, but there is that growth period because sometimes you and I will have an experience with the Lord that that experience lasts for a season. That is, it’s so overwhelming in our life. And it doesn’t mean that you not take a giant step every day or every week or every month, but the growth is there. That is, there’s none of this stagnation and loss of interest in the things of God. There’s something awesome going on in your life. And so, when I think about why people don’t grow and why they get stagnant, There are lots of different reasons. But let me just say this. If you cease to feed upon the Word of God, you’re going to cease to grow. You can bring to birth a child and do not feed that child, and that child’s going to die. You don’t give them nourishment, they’re going to die. You don’t feed as a believer upon the Word of God, you are going to stagnate in your Christian life. There are no exceptions to that. It doesn’t make any difference how much or how many sermons a man preaches. It doesn’t make any difference how many seminaries he’s been to and how many PhDs or THDs or whatever is behind his name. You don’t read the Word of God, you stagnate in your spiritual walk, and that’s devastating to a Christian’s life and to a Christian’s testimony. So, I want you to listen carefully. This passage of Scripture that we’re going to read, if you read it, and really mean what you read, it’s going to take courage. And I’m going to explain to you why it’s going to take courage. So, I want you to turn to the 139th Psalm. Listen to what this psalmist is saying. This is David. Oh, Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down. and are intimately acquainted with all My ways. Even before there is a word on My tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all.” That is, He is omniscient. He knows everything. Now, He starts off the chapter with that, but go to the last two verses now, verses twenty-three and twenty-four. And listen to what he says here. Search me, O God, knowing Him like He does. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. That is, see if you find anything in me that’s hurtful to me, that’s damaging to me. That’s a hindrance to me. Then he says, and lead me, lead me in the everlasting way. Now, when we talk about our spiritual evaluation, we talk about looking at our life and examining our life. I want you to think about it in this light. We’re talking about stopping to look on the inside, to ask yourself the question, where am I in my personal relationship to Jesus Christ? Where am I in my walk with Him? Where am I in my relationship to other people as a child of God? Am I growing or am I stagnant? Am I at the same place this year as I was last year? Or have I grown? Can anybody else tell that I’m growing as a Christian? In other words, is my testimony one of God being active in my life? Think about this. You made a commitment one day to be a follower of Jesus Christ. That means there should be something about us that’s like Him. And oftentimes, people look at their life and have to admit, no, it’s not. What a tragedy if you’re not growing. So, think about the person who’s stunted in their growth. And there are people who are stunted in their spirit, stunted in their mind, stunted in their soul. And it can happen to anybody. Now, I want us to think about some things very serious here. And the statement here is very clear, and that is, it is a request. The request is, Lord, I want You to look at me. I want You to examine me. I want You to show me if there’s anything in me that’s not right, and then lead me out of that. Show me the way I ought to walk. And then he says in the seventeenth verse, out of pure gratitude, here’s what he says. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I’m still with You.” That is, this sense of gratitude for what God is doing in His life. And so, He says, therefore, I want you to check Me out. I want you to look at my life, and I want to see it like you see it. I want you to examine me. That is, it isn’t just a matter of me praying and thinking about this. Is it not true that most of the time when we are praying, we are asking Him for something? It could be something for somebody else. It could be something for ourselves. But to ask God, Lord, I want to have a personal encounter with you. I want you to x-ray me, scan me. Let’s have… genuine spiritual surgery. I want to see me the way You see me. Leave nothing unexposed. Show it to me just the way You see it, God. I want to be the kind of person You want me to be, and for that to happen, I know that these things must be true, and it may be very painful. For me to look at myself. But search me. And as he says here, search me and know my ways. Discover me. Let me look at my attitudes. Let me look at my actions. Let me be absolutely honest about all this. Then for him to pray that, he had this confidence that God would do exactly what he asked. Well, why? For the simple reason, here’s what he said in the very beginning. He said, Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down. That is every single aspect of me You know. He says, I know that You know that. And so, what I’m asking You to do, I want You to work in me so I want you to do for me what no one else can do.” And you see, the truth is, think about this. You know, people go to psychiatrists trying to find out what’s going on inside of them. The greatest psychiatrist is God. Psychiatrists, I’m not knocking all psychiatrists, but if a psychiatrist doesn’t know Jesus Christ as personal Savior, they can do you far more damage than they can do good. Because it’s up to a matter of you confessing this and stirring this around and confessing more and stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring. Well, how often should I come back that we keep stirring, stirring, stirring? Listen, you don’t need to be stirred. You need to be emptied and cleaned up. And things need to change. And only God is going to be able to change a person. I’m not saying that a person cannot be helped in certain ways, but you get the wrong one and it’s devastating. God is the greatest psychiatrist because God is the only person who can say, I know all your ways. So, He makes this request and then here’s the confidence that He has. He says, because I know He loves me, He’s going to show me the truth. Now, I’m going to say this two or three different times. God loves you unconditionally. No matter what’s back there in your life, no matter what’s happened, no matter what He shows you about yourself, no matter how guilty you may feel, how wrong you have been treated, and how unforgiven you may have been, all the things that have happened, God’s love has never ceased. It’s always there. Somebody says, well, if He loves me this much, why am I in the mess that I’m in? Because you’ve got yourself there. Or because you allowed someone else to lead you into that mess. But God does not lead us into situations and circumstances that would destroy our lives. He loves you no matter what, and there’s not a single verse in the Bible to prove otherwise. And so the consequences of what we experience in life are the consequences of what we have done in our own lives, our actions and our attitudes. And so when I see that, And I see what the psalmist is requesting now. It’s one thing to say, yeah, fix me, God. That is, show me what I’m really like. Show me what my real attitude is. Show me if there’s jealousy, if there’s lust, if there’s anger, bitterness, hostility, resentment. Am I still holding things against other people in my life? Am I living with bitterness and anxiety? Am I living with resentments that started way back yonder? Because listen, as long as these elements and these attitudes in a person’s life, you will never be free. You’ll never be the person God wants you to be. It is absolutely essential that we deal deep down inside of us. And here’s the reason. Because within every man, the little boy is still there. No matter what kind of family you grew up in, the little boy is still there. And every woman, the little girl is still there. You may have grown up in a wonderful family or one that was not so wonderful. But the little boy and the little girl is still there. And so, what have you done all these years? You and I have been piling thoughts, habits, attitudes, actions, things we believe. dislikes, likes, loves, hatreds, whatever it might be. That’s who we are. We’re the summation of the, from the very beginning, or even before you were born, the summation of all these years and years and years and years. So, a lot of good things in our life maybe, a lot of things in our life that are not so good. What we have to ask is, what is required of me? That is, if we ask God, Lord, search my heart. Show me the real truth about my attitude. Show me if that’s real love. Show me the difference between love and lust. Show me if I really and truly know how to be accepting of others. Show me if I really feel rejected. Am I carrying things, loads in my life, burdens, baggage, emotional baggage that’s been there for years and years and years? Am I willing to ask Him to do that? It takes courage to ask God to x-ray you, scan you, show you yourself. Because sometimes it can be very frightening. Now, what are the requirements? You say, well, I’m going to ask God to do that. It takes more than wishing. He’s not going to do it because you wish it was all cleaned up. And the first thing it takes is a willingness on our part to look within us. Willingness to look on the inside. I’m willing for God. I’m willing for God to show me. Because think about this. All of us know more about other things than we know about ourselves. Because what we know about ourselves is tainted. And most people, if you say, do you like yourself? Yeah. They’re looking in the mirror. You look in the Word of God and ask yourself that question, you’d say, oh, Jesus, help me. Because it isn’t skin deep. As long as you only look skin deep, you’ll never discover what God wants you to be and what He wants to accomplish in your life. And what I want you to see today is this. I want you to see how very important it is to look within yourself. And pray this prayer genuinely, consciously, deliberately, willfully, sincerely. Lord, show me myself. And the question is, do you have the courage to ask God, Lord, search me. Show me what I’m feeling. And then, Lord, show me how to walk in obedience to you. So, you have to decide whether you’re willing to Relinquish it, let God deal with it, or you keep it bound up within you. You’ll never be able to have what God wants you to have. Be the person God wants you to be. But if you’re willing, here’s what you can expect. What are the rewards? The first one is the removal of those spiritual blockers. Whatever is there, whether it is unforgiveness or whatever, Secondly, there’ll be a more intimate relationship with Him. Why? There’s a sense of freedom. There’s a degree, a greater degree of peace and contentment and joy. Why? Because things are clean between you and God, between other people. It’s all been dealt with. A greater understanding of His love. When you look within and think about this, You look within you, it doesn’t make any sense what’s happened back then, what’s been going on. And you realize that God, knowing every single solitary thing that you’ve ever done, seen, heard, participated in, and what’s His response? I love you. Should that not be enough to motivate us to want to just say, Lord, I want You to have Your way in my life? And then, of course, the Word of God and prayer are going to become a priority in your life. Because what is it that showed you this to begin with? What was it? It was the Word of God. The entrance of Your Word gives me light to understand what God and help me to see things as God sees them. And when you and I see things as God sees them, everything changes. And then, of course, what before was an effort is now an energizer. Now, think about this. When there’s poison in the system, the energy level is not the same. When there is something going on inside of you physically, some kind of infection that’s going on, then something happens to your energy. For example, let’s say you have a big case of the flu, a bad case. You know how bad you feel? You don’t feel like doing anything, getting up, going anywhere, anything. There are many people who are struggling through life emotionally on the inside. They had this bad case of something they can’t identify because they never stopped to try to, or known to, or desire to. It steals you energy. And I wonder how many people who are on all kind of medicine today, if they allowed God to do some spiritual surgery, They wouldn’t need to take any more medicine because what has caused the energy drain in their life is gone. When the infection’s over, energy comes up. And then the last thing I would say is there’s a spiritual freedom that’s not going to be there otherwise. You see, the truth is many people are very bound up in emotional things. It’s like chains on their emotions. They can’t love. They want to love, but they can’t. They want to be loved, but they can’t. And they want to love, but they can’t. They’re bound up. And it takes spiritual surgery, a willingness and the courage to look within to say, God, show me my way. If there’s any hurtful way in me, show me what it is. Expose it to me so that I can not just confess it, but God, I’m willing to deal with it. Whatever is required of me to deal with it, I’m willing because I want to be free.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to Your Spiritual Growth. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
