When Your Spirit Grows

Growing in communion with the Lord through every season

I want to grow into a man whose inward life can carry what God entrusts to him. I want my communion with Jesus to reach into my responses, my decisions, and the way I love people. A moment of anointing can move a room, but the life I cultivate with the Lord determines how I walk when the room is empty. That is where I must bring this question: Is my spirit growing?

When I speak of my spirit growing, I mean my inward life being strengthened by the Holy Spirit and increasingly formed into the likeness of Christ. Paul prayed that believers would be strengthened through the Spirit in their inner being, with Christ dwelling in their hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:16–17). This growth reaches into my thinking and desires. It changes how I live in my body and how I treat my neighbour.

A plant helps me understand this. I can stand over a seed and demand visible progress, but my impatience cannot produce roots. Life develops as the plant receives what it needs. Some of its most important growth happens beneath the soil. Before there is shade for another person, there must be roots capable of sustaining the tree.

I believe we need to recover that understanding in the Church. We can become so concerned with visible ministry that we neglect the hidden life that sustains it. We celebrate gifts while overlooking character. Yet the Father is interested in the whole person. He desires sons and daughters who remain rooted in His love and bear fruit that blesses others.

Jesus gives me the foundation in John 15. He is the vine; we are the branches. His command is to remain in Him. A branch receives its life through its connection to the vine. I cannot sustain spiritual fruitfulness through yesterday’s encounter while continually neglecting fellowship with Him today.

Communion means I make room for the Lord Himself. I open His Word to receive and obey it. I speak to Him honestly and listen with a surrendered heart. I worship when there is no audience. I return my attention to Him throughout the day. These practices do not purchase His love. They express my response to the love He has already given.

Psalm 1 describes a tree planted beside streams of water, bearing fruit in its season. The person in that picture delights in the Lord’s instruction and meditates on it. I need Scripture working deeply in me. A verse can become a correction to my attitude, a restraint upon my tongue, or strength for an obedience I would otherwise avoid. The Word nourishes me as I receive its truth and live it.

The condition of the soil matters too. In Jesus’ parable of the sower, worries, riches, and other desires choke the word (Mark 4:18–19). I must ask what is crowding my heart. Constant distraction can consume the attention I should be giving to God. Bitterness can occupy the place where love should grow. I cannot welcome every competing desire and expect an undivided life with Jesus.

There is also a patience I must learn. A gardener does not dig up a seed every morning to see whether it has begun to grow. I can become so occupied with examining my progress that I forget to receive the nourishment before me. I need to give faithful habits time to bear fruit. As I keep returning to Jesus, His grace can work through ordinary days. A quiet act of obedience today may be part of a strength I will need in a future season.

I also need the people God places around me. The body of Christ grows as its members serve one another in love (Ephesians 4:15–16). Private communion should make me more willing to receive correction and contribute to the Church. Roots deepen in hidden places, but the fruit of those roots belongs in the lives of others.

I cannot use my emotions as the only measure of my spiritual condition. There are days when prayer feels alive and days when I must patiently gather my attention. Feelings matter, but they do not tell the whole story. I can feel deeply moved and still resist a clear instruction from God. I can feel weary and still obey Him with a faithful heart.

Nor should I assume every dry season proves that I am growing. Sometimes I need repentance, rest, or help from a trusted believer. The question is whether I am responding to the Lord and becoming more like Christ. The fruit of the Spirit gives me a more dependable measure than the intensity of an experience (Galatians 5:22–23).

One sign of growth is that I become more responsive when the Lord exposes sin. Something I once excused begins to trouble me. I notice the pride beneath a statement or the resentment behind my silence. His light reaches places I had protected from examination.

Joseph’s refusal of Potiphar’s wife challenges me. He understood that the proposed act would violate his master’s trust and be a sin against God (Genesis 39:8–9). His relationship with God shaped a decision made far from home. That is the kind of inward strength I want: faithfulness when compromise could remain concealed.

But a tender conscience must lead somewhere. If I grieve over harsh speech yet refuse to apologise, I am resisting the very conviction I claim to value. Growth should produce repentance and, over time, increasing freedom from sin. I must bring the exposed thing to Jesus and take the step His truth requires.

The enemy would use my failure to drive me into hiding. The Holy Spirit draws me toward confession and cleansing. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), and forgiveness never requires me to pretend that sin is harmless. I can face it because I belong to a merciful Saviour. Like a gardener removing weeds, He is making room for healthy life.

Another sign is that my prayers begin to change. I still bring needs to the Father. Jesus taught us to ask for daily bread, and I will never outgrow dependence upon His provision. Yet I want to know the One to whom I am praying. My heart begins to seek His presence even when an answer has not arrived.

There is a difference between reporting my circumstances and opening my heart. I can describe a conflict while concealing my resentment. I can ask God to change another person while refusing to let Him examine me. Communion calls me into honesty. I begin to pray, “Father, this hurts, and I need You to show me what is happening in my own heart.”

The Psalms give me language for anguish as well as praise. Job reminds me that suffering can bring difficult questions into our relationship with God. God also corrected Job, and Job responded with humility (Job 38–42). Honest prayer gives the Lord room to answer me and to challenge my understanding.

I must stay long enough to receive what He is addressing. Sometimes the obedience arising from prayer is simple: forgive someone, make a telephone call, stop defending an attitude. Water must reach the roots. In the same way, prayer must reach the places where I actually live.

I see growth when I become quicker to listen and slower to speak. James 1:19 places those instructions beside being slow to anger. They belong together. If I speak before I understand, I can make my anger sound like discernment and wound someone while believing I am helping.

As a minister, I must take this seriously. A prophetic calling does not excuse an impatient tongue. I am responsible for how I handle people as well as what I say to them. Before speaking, I need to consider whether my words are true, whether I have understood the situation, and whether love governs the way I deliver them.

Barnabas shows me the value of making room for another person’s story. When the disciples in Jerusalem feared Saul, Barnabas brought him to the apostles and explained what had happened to him (Acts 9:26–28). Later, he wanted to take Mark with him despite Mark’s earlier withdrawal from the work (Acts 15:37–39). He recognised that a person’s past need not exhaust their future.

Spiritual maturity does not require me to become silent about truth. It teaches me to speak truth in love. Sometimes I must correct firmly; sometimes I must ask another question. The growing person becomes more available to the Spirit in that moment, less compelled to win the exchange.

A tree needs roots that can sustain it through changing conditions. My inward life also needs depth. When circumstances become painful, I discover where I have placed my confidence. Have I trusted the Lord, or have I trusted my expectation that obedience would make life easy?

Paul wrote that suffering produces endurance, endurance character, and character hope (Romans 5:3–5). This does not mean suffering automatically improves everyone. I can become bitter under pressure. But as I receive God’s grace and remain responsive to Him, hardship can become a place where endurance develops.

Joseph’s imprisonment was unjust. Scripture does not ask me to call that injustice good. It does show that the Lord was with Joseph there (Genesis 39:20–23). His circumstances could not cancel God’s presence. I need that assurance when the visible evidence seems to argue against the future I hoped for.

Paul learned contentment in different circumstances through Christ’s strength (Philippians 4:11–13). I want that learned steadiness. I can pray for deliverance, seek practical help, and lament what hurts while continuing to trust the Lord. Faith can remain alive in grief. When I return to God instead of allowing disappointment to sever communion, my roots have an opportunity to deepen.

A healthy fruit tree feeds others. That picture confronts my motives in ministry. If my inward life is growing, people should receive more than evidence of my gifting. They should encounter patience, generosity, and care. My fellowship with Jesus should make me increasingly useful to someone who cannot advance my reputation.

Jesus taught us to give without arranging an audience for our generosity (Matthew 6:1–4). The Father sees. I need to let that truth settle deeply enough that His pleasure matters more to me than public acknowledgement. I can serve faithfully even when another person receives the thanks.

John the Baptist’s response to Jesus’ increasing prominence is a searching example. He understood his assignment and rejoiced in the Bridegroom’s voice. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30, KJV). His joy was tied to Christ’s fulfilment of the work, so the movement of the crowds did not have to destroy his sense of purpose.

I want that freedom. Apostolic ministry should strengthen others to fulfil their calling. I must be willing to celebrate someone I have helped when they step into greater responsibility. The Kingdom belongs to Jesus. When I can rejoice in fruit that grows beyond my own platform, something healthy is developing within me.

Perhaps the most searching sign is that I recognise my need for God more clearly. Experience can teach me how to organise a meeting or communicate a message. It cannot make me the source of spiritual life. I remain a branch, however many years I have served.

Moses understood the necessity of the Lord’s presence when he pleaded that Israel should not be taken onward without Him (Exodus 33:15). I must carry that concern into every assignment. An open door deserves prayerful discernment. My ability to enter it does not establish that God has asked me to go through it.

Jesus says that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). I receive this as a call to continual dependence. I need His wisdom in decisions, His love when my patience runs thin, and His strength to remain obedient. Maturity brings greater responsibility while deepening my awareness of where the strength comes from.

This dependence does not make me passive. Paul describes labouring with the energy God powerfully works within him (Colossians 1:29). I can work diligently and still confess that the Lord sustains me. A growing spirit becomes more willing to act in faith because it is learning to trust Him.

Jesus also speaks of the Father pruning fruitful branches so that they bear more fruit (John 15:2). That image prevents me from treating every correction as rejection. The Father can address something in my life precisely because He intends further fruitfulness. I must let His Word examine what I am reluctant to release.

Still, I should not label every loss as divine pruning or claim to understand the purpose of every wound. What I can do is bring the whole season to the Lord. “Father, show me what needs to change. Heal what has been injured. Teach me to receive Your care.” His character gives me grounds to entrust myself to Him when explanations are incomplete.

I believe this is a summons for the Church: cultivate the life that can sustain the calling. Give the Word room. Return to prayer with honesty. Respond to correction. Make time for fellowship and serve the person before you. These are places where communion becomes a life, and where spiritual growth becomes visible in love.

I cannot promise myself that tomorrow will feel different. I can place myself before the Lord today. I can obey the truth already given and trust Him with the growth I cannot yet measure. Paul planted, Apollos watered, and God gave the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6–7). The same Lord remains faithful to His work in us.

My prayer is that we become people with roots deep in Christ, people whose presence brings nourishment to others. Father, strengthen our inner being by Your Spirit. Keep our hearts tender toward You. Form the character that can carry Your gifts faithfully. Let the fruit of our communion bring glory to Jesus and life to the people You have called us to love.

Peter Nash