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In this video, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson challenges our assumptions about spiritual growth, suggesting it’s less about self-assessment and more about our deepening engagement with Scripture, Christ, and the faith community.


I think the question, “How do you gauge whether you’re growing spiritually?” can maybe be answered in two different ways. At one level, I think I could answer the question by saying there are certain very important evidences of spiritual growth.

The first, I think, would probably be that you are studying the Word of God and loving the Word of God. One of the things Paul says, for example, to the Corinthians is that they should be children with respect to sin and evil, but they should, in understanding, be mature. And we know, for example, from a passage like Romans 12, that the way in which we grow, the way in which our lives are transformed, is by the renewal of our minds. So, one of the tools that God has given to us, the growth tools we might say, is His own Word.

Sometimes, I remember years ago it used to be said, “You are what you eat.” And I think it can also be said as Christians that we are what we read. We become more and more like the Word of God as we digest the Word of God. It gives us strength and enables us to grow. And the fruit of that—I think the chief fruit of that—would be that we grow in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus and our love for Him.

Martin Luther used to say that we should go to the Bible the way the wise men went to the manger; to look for Christ. And because I think, at the end of the day, spiritual growth is being transformed into the likeness of Christ. The more we gaze on Him, the more we will become like Him and love Him. So, I do quite often think that one of the best ways to do this is to always be reading the Gospels. And not only the Gospels, but never be far away from the Gospels because it’s there that you learn what Jesus was like. It’s there that you gaze into a kind of mirror in which you can see Him and reflect Him. So first of all, growing in our understanding of the Bible and our love for it, that leads us to grow in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus and our love for Him.

I think another way in which we see spiritual growth in our lives is by our love for God’s people. That we grow in love for those who themselves love the Lord Jesus and we grow in appreciation of them. Because we’re not meant to live the Christian life, not to grow simply, as isolated individuals. Often I point out to people that the “you” that’s used in the New Testament letters is almost always a “you” plural. And although we apply it to ourselves, it’s really addressed to us as part of a community. So, we don’t grow on our own spiritually any more than we grow on our own naturally.

So, these three things I think would be important.

And then I think a fourth thing that brings us to a slightly different answer is based on what Paul says in Philippians 3 when he speaks about forgetting what lies behind. He presses on to know Christ better. And actually, one sign that we’re spiritually growing is that we’re no longer thinking about spiritually growing because our eyes have been directed towards the Word and towards Christ and towards the Lord’s people. Because real spiritual growth, I think, involves us turning from our sinful focus on ourselves to be refocused on Christ, His Word, and His people. So, from one point of view, the less we think about, “Am I growing spiritually?” it may well be likely that we are growing spiritually because we’ve started forgetting about ourselves and we’re focusing on Him.

So these are some of the ways I think, in which we can see the fruits of the spirits work in us and real spiritual growth.

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