If someone were to ask you, “How can I grow in Christ,” what would you say?

We would probably all respond with how important it is to read the Bible in a consistent way and to spend time in prayer, alone with the Lord. We would say, moreover, that we need to be in fellowship with other Christians, to publicly confess Jesus as our Lord, and to deal with any sins and other practices that might hinder us from running the Christian race (Heb. 12:1).

In a sense, this would be a good answer, for all these things are surely good and necessary if we are to grow. However, we must eventually be clear, none of these practices will in themselves cause us to grow in Christ.

The apostle Paul told the believers in Corinth, very plainly,

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
— 1 Corinthians 3:6

So, according to this verse, only God Himself can give us the genuine growth in Christ.

No doubt, we need the exercises mentioned above, for if we neglect them, we will never grow spiritually. Yet, we may be very exercised in all of these ways and still sense we are making very little progress with the Lord.

Again, we would surely believe that if Apollos and the apostle Paul were laboring on us, we would grow quite well; what a blessing it would be to have them help us and guide us in our walk with the Lord! But even so, in this verse the apostle himself tells us that, No, apart from God’s own work, even his labor must be in vain.

The reason is, we are depending on these methods, or on these persons, which means we are depending on our own efforts and not on God Himself. It is only when we realize that, apart from God Himself, all our efforts are vain, so that we cast ourselves utterly upon God for our growth, that we will experience what it truly means to grow in Christ.

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—  16 April 2025 —