Quotes About Growth

The "interior castle" of the human soul, as Teresa of Avila called it, has many rooms, and they are slowly occupied by God, allowing us time and room to grow.

To "grow in grace" means to utilize more and more grace to live by, until everything we do is assisted by grace. Then, whatever we do in word or deed will all be done in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17). The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace—those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being. Grace to them is like breath.

Christian spiritual formation rests on this indispensable foundation of death to self and cannot proceed except insofar as that foundation is being firmly laid and sustained.

In relation to spiritual disciplines, the most helpful distinction is the difference between trying to do something and training to do something.

There are no formulas—no definitive how-tos—for growth in the inner character of Jesus. Such growth is a way of relentless seeking. But there are many things we can do to place ourselves at the disposal of God, and "if with all our hearts we truly seek him, we shall surely find him

Our task in ourselves and in others is to transform right answers into automatic responses to real-life situations.

To train means arranging our life around those practices that enable us to do what we cannot now do by direct effort. The point of training is to receive power, so we arrange our life around practices through which we get power.

No good tree produces bad fruit, nor any bad tree good fruit…. The good person, from the good treasured up in his heart, produces what is good. LUKE 6:43–45

If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all…. One reason why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself.

The spiritual side of the human being, Christian and non-Christian alike, develops into the reality that it becomes, for good or ill.

You cannot drift into a life of constant companionship with Jesus

Disciplines are activities that are in our power and that enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.

The command "Be ye perfect" is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. C. S. LEWIS, MERE CHRISTIANITY

Life as usual must go. It will be replaced by something far better.

But—for good reasons rooted deeply in the nature of the person and of personal relationships—his preferred way is to speak, to communicate: thus the absolute centrality of scripture to our discipleship. And this, among other things, is the reason why an extensive use of solitude and silence is so basic for growth of the human spirit, for they form an appropriate context for listening and speaking to God.1

only humility leads to perfect death; only death perfects humility. Humility and death are in their very nature one: humility is the bud; in death the fruit is ripened to perfection.

So, C. S. Lewis writes, our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and "trying to carry it out." Rather, "The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to 'inject' His kind of life and thought, His Zoe [life], into you; beginning to turn the tin

soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin."13

two main things that will block or hinder a life constantly interactive with God and healthy growth in the kingdom. These are the desire to have the approval of others, especially for being devout, and the desire to secure ourselves by means of material wealth.

Things good and bad will happen to us, of course. But what our life amounts to, at least for those who reach full age, is largely, if not entirely, a matter of what we become within.

Great power requires great character if it is to be a blessing and not a curse, and that character is something we only grow toward.

Many, many of the people who are identified as Christians have never been invited to become a disciple of Jesus. We don't have discipleship evangelism, but we need to have it because of the multitudes of people who are ready to go, who just need to understand and see and have the invitation to become disciples of Jesus. That's the way we have to go forward.

spiritual formation is a matter of reworking all aspects of the self.

But the final step in becoming a disciple is decision. We become a life student of Jesus by deciding. When