It is important to check ourselves regularly in order to determine if we are growing or have become spiritually stagnant.
Once in a while, we need a reminder, a checklist to see if our spiritual lives are still on point or need more work.
Pulse Religion is here to offer this much-needed clarity. Here is how to know if your spiritual life needs more work.
When you barely read the Bible
There is a reason the Bible tells us to study to show yourself approved by God (See II Timothy 2:15). As Christians, who care about our spiritual growth, it is important that we always spend time reading God’s Word, that we read it so much that we are transformed from inside out.
We can never be too busy for God. Don’t let life’s challenges distract you and take you away from God’s Word.
When you care too much about worldly standards not enough about what God says
As Christians, we face the daily danger and struggle of living in the world but not being of the world.
What this means is that we have to fight constantly against the things of the flesh and worldly standards that often contradict God’s ways (See Colossians 2:20–23).
This is why a major way to tell if your spiritual life needs some work is when you find yourself caring too much about worldly standards and not enough about what God wants.
For instance, you find yourself succumbing to the pressure of having premarital sex when God says otherwise. Once something like this happens, you know to do some more work on your spiritual life.
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When your Christianity is not reflected in your daily life
It is relatively easy to call yourself a Christian, to go to church, and do all the religious stuff.
The hard part comes when you take a look at your lifestyle and realise that there is no difference between what you were before Christianity and now.
2 Timothy 3:2–7 points out the difference between a secular Christian and a true believer saying:
“For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.
“And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
The true mark of Christianity is a sustained changed life. If there is no change, then your spiritual life needs major work.