You must be self-motivated to grow in your faith and relationship with the Lord.

Your preacher does not have a chart marking off your accomplishments. No one requires a time sheet showing all the hours you served selflessly for Jesus. No one at Church asks you the number of hours you spent reading your Bible. None of your family will need a report on your prayer life. No spreadsheets are tracking your spiritual growth.

It is strictly between you and God.

As a result, it is easy to hit the snooze button and skip a quiet time. No one is disappointed if you watch another show on TV rather than read your Bible. There are no immediate consequences if you sleep in on Sunday and skip Church.

Spiritual growth requires you to push yourself to be all God desires. It is a transformation of your natural desires to pursue the things of God. And the first thing that needs changing is your desire.

The Church can only provide the resources for growth; the rest must come from inside you.

I described a person I knew to someone else and said, “They are a very important person to me.”

Then it hit me: that is what every Christian should want to be.

The temptation is to become known to everyone. We call that fame. Every person knows my name, possibly my face, and some of the work I have done. It sounds appealing.

Yet, everyone can learn about you, and your life still feels like it has little value. Don’t believe me? Google “celebrity suicide.” So many famous people felt empty enough to take their own lives that Wikipedia has to categorize them by year and alphabetically.

Fame does not make people happy. Significance does. 

And you cannot be significant to a large group of people effectively. It only happens in small groups and individual relationships.

Only a few people may know your name, which is okay if those people see you as having a significant role in their life. It is far better to be important to a few than popular to a lot.

Who sees you as an important person in their life?

I hate that Christians call some of their gatherings “Retreats.”

There are youth retreats, men’s retreats, women’s retreats, couple’s retreats, and leadership retreats. It seems that every weekend, some Church group is retreating.

The idea is that some people are withdrawing from active service for renewal. They step away from the usual routine to reconnect with God and one another.

If that is the case, we should approach every day with a sense of “Engagement.” We should see each one as an opportunity to defeat the enemy forces and accomplish our mission. 

Retreats after months of engagement are rejuvenating. Retreats after months of disengagement are laughable.

Perhaps the Church needs more weekends of active “Engagement” than another “Retreat.”  

One key that I have learned to keep a vibrant spiritual life is continual change. Whenever I start into a season where I feel stale and stagnant in my personal growth, I change my routine. This can often breathe new life into my old habits.

One example would be when my prayer life seems lifeless. This is an excellent time to try praying in a different physical position or location. Standing, kneeling, and praying out loud have helped me reengage spiritually.

Sometimes, it means changing the routine that I use to pray. Starting with the needs of others and then moving to my needs allows me to refocus. A prayer journal might keep my thoughts clear and give me a place to write down how prayers were answered. Small changes in my daily habits can help me find the passion I have lost.

If you are going to read and pray every day for the rest of your life, you will need to change your approach to those two practices frequently. One little change can often help you focus mentally or eliminate distractions.

So, don’t give up if you are struggling with keeping the spiritual disciplines. Try something different.

It is not a choice of either/or. 

It is both/and.

A mature believer is committed to the entire Great Commission of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20. They are being discipled to “obey everything Jesus commanded.”

And part of that obedience is going out to make more disciples.

A person is not a mature Christian disciple until he reproduces more disciples.

We do not have a choice between developing disciples or reaching new believers. Christians are instructed to do both.

I am an enormous advocate of building relationships in an effort to share our faith. I have been preaching and teaching this since I first entered the ministry.

An intelligent youth minister once quipped, “The problem with lifestyle evangelism for most people is that it is all lifestyle and no evangelism.”

He is correct.

I want Christians to connect to nonbelievers in meaningful ways so that they share the message of Jesus. But if all we do is hang out with them and become their friends without starting spiritual conversations, inviting them to Church, and ultimately sharing the Gospel, then we have failed.

Be wise in your relationships and words; eternity hangs in the balance.

Last summer, I walked up to a guy at the Kansas City Market sitting on a bench and holding a sign. The handwritten sign read, “Would you like to talk about Jesus?” in bold letters. While I was walking up, a man in front of me, obviously a Christian, asked, “How’s it going? Have you talked to many people?” The frustrated sign holder said despondently, “I’m getting a million ‘No’s.'”  

While I think the sign holder had the best intentions, I also believe he was misguided. Sharing our faith, or evangelism, is rarely talking to random strangers about Jesus. While I will admit a few exceptions to this rule, I would adamantly argue that they are exceptions.

I believe this man could have used his time much more wisely for the sake of the Gospel. What if he took the time to visit all the neighbors around him and get to know them? What if he invited all his coworkers for a cookout and got to know them and their families? What if he had made an intentional effort to connect to a non-Christian he encountered every day, like a barista, the person working at the grocery store, a wait staff at a local restaurant, or a gas station cashier?

This approach to sharing your faith is called lifestyle evangelism or, as I call it, permission evangelism. A believer connects to a nonbeliever personally and earns permission to share their faith. It is about pouring your life into people so they know you care, which will open doors for spiritual conversations.

I get why the guy chose the sign on a Saturday afternoon. It is quick, easy, and requires little personal investment. Gaining permission is time-consuming, may cost you financially, and will pull at your soul’s depths.

The plea of scripture is that Christians are wise in the way they act toward outsiders, and today, that looks more like relationships than signs.

He was on a business trip to the city. It was a thriving community of 30,000-40,000 people that served as a place of commerce for most of its region. He was headed up to handle some government business and then be on his way.

Along his journey, something happened. Something totally unexpected.

Saul was on his way to Damascus to imprison people who belonged to the Way. He was an enemy of all who followed Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Suddenly, a light flashed around him, and he heard a voice from heaven. From that moment on, his life was entirely different. He moved from an antagonist of the faith to a believer and then from a believer to a Christian leader.

I am not expecting God to show up with bright lights and speak to all the people I know who are not believers. But I understand that God can break through into someone’s heart at any moment.

After years of inviting someone to Church, at an unexpected time, they might accept. After years of witnessing to my lost neighbor, they might finally ask me about my faith. A lifetime of prayer for my children might one day be greeted with questions about Jesus.

You never know when something unexpected might happen, and the Gospel of Jesus transforms a life. Keep working, serving, inviting, praying, and believing for God to move in ways others might not expect.   

As a pastor, my goal is to lead people to spiritual maturity. I want them to emulate Christ in their thoughts, actions, and words. Through the years, I have noticed various indicators of when a person has reached maturity in the faith. Some are things you would expect, while others are more subtle. Here is my current list of things I am looking for in a person.

1. Biblical Knowledge. Has the person read their Bible? Do they know what it says and have deep convictions about it?

2. Morality. Is the person living out what they claim to believe? Does their behavior represent their faith?

3. Continued Growth. Does the person have an open heart and mind to learn more? Do they have a quiet time where they read, meditate, and pray?

4. Service. Are they serving others in the name of Jesus? Is loving their neighbor a natural part of their daily life?

5. Church Connection. The Church is the body of Christ, so are they connected to it in a meaningful way? Does this person seek to live out the “one another” passages found in the Bible?

6. Holy Spirit Led. Is the person praying and seeking the Lord’s will in their lives? Their primary question is, “What does God want me to do in this situation?” and they attempt to follow the Lord’s will.

7. Living Grace. Would this person be described as loving, forgiving, kind, compassionate, and grace-filled? Is their life overflowing with the fruit of the Spirit?

8. Responsible. Can this person feed themselves the truth of the Gospel? Do they push themselves to learn, grow, serve, give, connect, and love without someone else pushing them?

9. Sharing Their Faith. Is this person actively sharing the message of Jesus with someone who is not a believer? Are they inviting their non-believing friends to Church? When was the last time they led someone to faith?

10. Discipleship. Are they reproducing the life of faith in others? Do they have a “feed me” mentality, or are they trying to “feed others?” When was the last time they helped develop someone into a spiritually mature follower of Jesus?

These are the majority of things I am looking for in a mature believer. We tend to focus on a few of these and neglect or ignore the others. There is a big difference between a Christian and someone who has “attained to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

In a preaching class in college, my professor shared a list of “Twenty questions to ask when the well is dry.” He walked us through each one with a bit of explanation about how we might use them to develop a sermon when it wasn’t coming quickly.

One of the older students had a computer, which was rare at that time, and he typed up the list of twenty questions. Then, he submitted them to the teacher, who made copies for each student. I took mine to the library and paid for a reduced copy. Finally, I trimmed it nicely and glued it into the last page of my leather Bible. That way, I would have those questions whenever I struggled to write a sermon.

These questions proved incredibly helpful for the first few years of my ministry. “Who do I identify with in this passage and why?” and “How will people feel if I expose the entire text?” helped me insert a point of view and feelings into every sermon.

Long about year five, I stopped looking at the list of questions. This was not because they were not helpful anymore; the well was not running dry. With every passing year that I read the Bible, dove into theology books, and listened to others preach and teach, I slowly filled my reservoir of information. Then, I spent time with people in my congregation. Christians struggling in their work, family, and spiritual life while walking through dark valleys of hurt and loss. These filled my tank with emotional connections about humanity.

Slowly, the well was full of rich Biblical knowledge coupled with an emotional sensitivity that allowed sermons to flow from the depth of my being rather than from a written page.

One metaphor for the Christian life is the empty vessel. We come to Jesus and empty ourselves of the sin, shame, and worldview we once held. Then, we begin the process of filling ourselves with the things of God. Our love of the Lord and the love of our neighbor take over our souls, and the well fills with living water.

As a believer, whenever you feel like the well is dry, keep trying to pour in the things of God. Don’t give up. Even a little bit flowing in every single day or week is helpful. Then, one day, the well will have enough resources that you will never feel dry again.