#138 Spiritual Formation and Discipleship

The Importance of Spiritual Formation.

Spiritual formation is an important part of discipleship. In the book Spiritual Formation Is… Earley writes, “The goal of spiritual formation is the glorious transformation of the believer. Moses is the only one under the old covenant who is described as having a glorious transformation. But Paul states that under the new covenant, transformation is available and expected of “all” believers.” This means that we are all expected to develop a relationship with God as real and as personal as the one that Moses had with God. This relationship should be visible on our faces, in our actions, and in our beliefs.

Spiritual formation is the process of becoming more like Christ. While discipleship is learning to do what Christ does; these are very interrelated processes. Gallaty writes, “When people in the pew don’t know what to do,” says Gallaty, “they don’t do anything at all.” Attending church on Sundays may develop their Christlikeness yet still leave them with a void as they have not learned to act like Jesus through discipleship. Yet “Many times churches try to make disciples without a clear understanding of what a disciple actually looks like”

Overview of The Three Areas Related to Spiritual Growth

The three areas related to spiritual growth according to Dempsey are upward, outward, and inward. Upward relates to your relationship with God. Inward is your relationship with other believers. While outward is your relationship with non believers. Our relationship with God is the first and most important aspect of spiritual growth. Dempsey writes of our upward spiritual growth, “We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Our love for God is to be all encompassing and all consuming.” This means that our relationship with God should touch every area of our lives.

Our relationship with God causes us to make changes in other areas of our lives as well. The inward part can be described as, “The way we love our brothers and sisters is to follow all of the “one anothers” in the New Testament and use our spiritual gifts to build one another up in the Lord’s service.” This means we must work towards the mutual growth and encouragement of believers in the Church as described in the New Testament.

The outward part is our relationship with non-believers. When we turn outwards, “Our love for God and for one another should be a major apologetic to the unbelieving world.” The way we live and relate to God and each other is seen by the non believers in our lives. We can be a force for God or not.

Walking in and Under the Holy Spirit

When we walk under the Holy Spirit we experience spiritual growth. The Holy Spirit guides our spiritual growth. We do not grow spiritually unless it is in our relationship with God in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit draws us towards discipleship. Leading towards or away from actions according to God’s will. As Bonhoeffer writes, “The call goes out, and without any further ado the obedient deed of the one called follows. The disciple’s answer is not a spoken confession of faith in Jesus. Instead, it is the obedient deed.” When we grow spiritually we learn to hear the Holy Spirit which calls us to action.

God multiplies are efforts at spiritual growth when we pursue discipleship. A disciple of Jesus, “is a person who is becoming spiritually mature. This occurs when a Christian knows his Bible inside and out.” Getting to know our Bible is part of our spiritual growth helping us to discern the voice of God in our lives. This can be further seen in the idea that “My observation is that spiritual growth happens better when someone is serving in a ministry rather than merely sitting in a classroom”

Personal Growth Assessment Observations

After taking the personal growth assessment I was surprised by my score. My overall score was sixty-eight. If that score was a grade it would be a C. I generally consider myself to be at least an A- Christian. So I was surprised by the result. In the love for God category my score was 4.7. In the love for one another category my score was 8.8. While in the love for our neighbors category the score was 6.9. These results would seem to indicate that I do a better job caring for people than for my relationship with God.

In the category of love for God the low score is characterized by contrast. One the one side with questions about daily prayer and Bible study I was able to answer ten out of ten. As our family reads the Bible and prays together daily and at meals. While we also study and pray separately as well. Meanwhile questions about having a dated prayer list, or praying to be filled with the Holy Spirit have a score of one out of ten as they are things that I almost never do. When I reflect on these absences and others I am not sure that I would consider them to be really an issue, or even things that I might change currently.

Other notable details from the assessment were the absence of fasting and Bible memorization. I have grown in the past year to start reading the Bible and praying daily whereas before last year it was more sporadic. Furthermore until taking a course on Evangelism at Liberty University this past term I was not very confident in sharing my faith. I had done it before and could explain it just not well, so that has been another area I have recently seen growth. When it comes to Bible memorization I have been attempting to memorize more but my memory is horrible. But I have made slow and consistent progress in that area. While with fasting I have only recently learned that there might be some value to doing it. I have not successfully fasted for more than a day.

Personal Growth Habits to Develop

There are several habits I need to develop and grow in these three areas. In the area of love for God I need to improve the quality of my communication with God. I think this looks like starting to keep a prayer list of things to pray for, finding more time to connect with God, and engaging in deeper prayer. In the love for one another area, I need to be more vulnerable about my faults with my fellow believers. When it comes to loving our neighbors I need to be more consistent with my prayer and keep a list of people to pray for. Overall I would say that I need to pray more. To know God more and to care for those in my life.

Bibliography

Smietana, Bob. "Show Me the Way: Why Churches Aren’t Making Disciples." Lifeway Research. June 9, 2016. https://research.lifeway.com/2016/06/09/show-me-the-way-why-churches-arent-making-disciples/.

Earley, Dave. “The Process of Being Changed to Be like Jesus,” in Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and Confidence (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 6.

Dempsey, Rod. “Beginning on a Sure Foundation,” in Disciple Making Is . . .: How to Live the Great Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2013), 22.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 57.

Jim Putman, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman, DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 43.