A Recipe for Spiritual Growth

In Galatians 5, Paul lays out a recipe for a fruitful, productive Christian life:
(16) Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.  (Then he lists some of the deeds of the flesh) 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.

I appreciate Biblical lists - these indicate some ingredients that contribute to our walk with Christ.  Galatians 5 has one, 2nd Peter has another, and Romans chapter 5 has even more ingredients.   In fact, as we abide in Christ and really seek to develop the components of a recipe for spiritual growth, we can find that certain characteristics can become more apparent in our lives.   I'm thankful that God has provided the tools we need to draw closer to Him.

I read earlier this week from 2nd Peter chapter 1 about become "partakers of the divine nature" - and later in the chapter, Peter gives what we might call a recipe for spiritual growth.    We pick up in verse 5:(5) giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.


Last week, it was announced that fans of the KFC Facebook Pages would be able to access exclusive content from a book, called, “Colonel Harland Sanders: The Autobiography of the Original Celebrity Chef.”   It was apparently written by the Colonel himself in 1966 and discovered by accident more than 40 years later, and now can be downloaded for free from Facebook - it is not available in book stores or via online book sellers.

Free content available beginning today includes: a foreword written by KFC’s first franchisee Pete Harman, an introduction written by Colonel Sanders, and the first chapter. Also available as part of the book are 33 never-before-seen recipes.   A glaring omission (of course) - the famous chicken recipe containing the mysterious 11 herbs and spices.   Now, there are plenty of sites where you can get imitations of the fried chicken recipe, but, to my knowledge, the real recipe has never been released.

I began to think about the ingredients of a recipe for spiritual growth, based on this new free book release.   First of all, you have to get the book to get the recipes.    And, isn't that true for our Christian lives ?- we can't really know the ingredients for spiritual growth without spending the necessary time in God's word to discover what will help us grow.

And, there are many imitations to the Christian faith.  Just as many have tried to reinvent the Colonel's secret chicken recipe, there are those that would attempt to grow in Christ using other than Biblical means.   There are those that would ignore the power of the cross, the confession of sin, the Biblical definition of certain sins, and the exclusivity of the gospel and design their own religion or approach to God.    We have to be so careful that we are adhering to Scriptural truth as we mix the ingredients to our spiritual life.

Finally, it's vital that we identify the ingredients contributing to our growth in Christ and mix them carefully in our lives.   Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research crafted a list of ingredients and challenged participants in a Bible study to fill out a recipe card according to what they desire to realistically experience that week in their spiritual lives.   Ingredients included:  grace, forgiveness, joy, patience, peace, love, hope, the Holy Spirit's power, prayer, personal Bible study, serving, worship, evangelism, and fellowship.    And, perhaps selecting one or two of these areas on which to concentrate can be helpful in our walk with Christ.

So, are you following the recipe and growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ?