You’re born into God’s family the moment you place your faith in Jesus for eternal life. You start as a spiritual baby. But it’s never God’s intention for you to remain a baby. You are to grow and thrive as a maturing believer in Jesus. But you never grow passively. You grow by practices meant to nourish you and stretch your spiritual muscles. Growing in Jesus becomes a life-long adventure of learning and change for His glory.

Discussion Questions

How would you describe the difference between being born as a new believer in Jesus and growing as a believer in Jesus? What does that timeline look like in your life?

The Bible is filled with warning for believers to live faithfully. Read 2 Peter 3:14-17. How would you summarize Peter’s concerns for his readers?

It is normal for living things to grow if nourished properly. Peter gives us two broad categories of growth as a believer. What are they (2 Peter 3:18)?

In His prayer, just before His crucifixion, Jesus prays for Himself, His disciples, and all who will believe in Him. Notice John 17:3. Eternal life is equated with knowing God (compare 2 Pet. 3:18). What does it mean for you to know God?

The means by which we grow spiritually from a long list. Four popular practices are Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and sharing your faith with others. Describe each of these and how these practices are seen in your life.

The list of practices or spiritual disciplines also includes solitude, silence, sabbath, secrecy, worship, fasting. Which are your go-to disciplines for spiritual growth? What disciplines have been neglected in your life and need stirring up?

The most under-acknowledged means of spiritual growth might be trials and hardship. Read Romans 5:3-5 and James 1:2-5. How might hardship help you grow toward maturity? What present hardship or difficulty is God using in your life right now?

Further Reading

When You Find and Follow Jesus

Becoming a Christian and living as one are two different things. God refers to one as justification and the other as sanctification. We might also understand these two distinctions as finding Jesus and following Jesus. Blur this distinction between salvation and...

Your Life with God

Salvation is often viewed as a singular “event” or moment in our lives. By God’s grace, we receive salvation by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus to save us. There is a sense in which this is absolutely true, from the moment of belief we are saved...

Your Old and New Natures

Have you ever felt unprepared? You’ve probably had a time in your life when you were not prepared at all for what was about to happen. As our flesh constantly fights to lead us further away from God, it’s easy for us to feel unprepared for life. But God prepares us by...

The Holy Spirit in Your Life

In the Bible, we read Jesus promising to send the Holy Spirit to his disciples after He is gone. As believers in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is also with us, living inside of us, just as Jesus promised. The question is, why did Jesus send the Holy Spirit to be with us?...

Confessing Your Sins

God’s redemptive plan for humanity involves the death of Jesus for the sins of everyone. But we enjoy God’s forgiveness only when we believe what Jesus did for us. Have you noticed, even Christians still sin? Confessing or admitting our daily sin keeps our...

Your Assurance of Salvation

Is it possible to know you have a new life through Christ and are headed for heaven? If so, how? God never intends for the assurance of your salvation to be a perpetual guessing game. You can know you’re saved. Unfortunately, you can lose your grip on the assurance of...