Over the next few days, I want to outline what I see as 3 characteristics of a faithful person. So here is part 1. Hope you enjoy!

I am a big fan of helping people become all that God wants them to be. One of those ways is to help people grow their relationship with God in a deeper way.

Over the last several years I have been exposed to different ways of helping with my own personal spiritual growth. I feel that having a plan in life is key; if you don’t know where you are going (plan), you won’t know when you get there (goal). That is why I see the benefit of having some sort of spiritual growth plan. Now, I have to say that everyone is different, so you may not like the ideas that I have and that is OK. The reality is that you and I need to have a plan of how we are going to be different and how our relationship with God will be better a year from now.

Since we are coming to an end of a year and many people take on some new year resolutions, I think that developing a plan of how you will grow yourself spiritually should be one of them. Below are 2 ways that I have developed my plans over the years. Feel free to adapt or borrow any of them. None of them are my original ideas.

#1. Develop a Spiritual Growth Plan – This plan is a written (a must for any plan) that encompasses the following categories:

• Spiritual
• Relational
• Physical
• Personal

Each one of these areas are written down and then a plan on how you would like to grow in the next year. For example: Relational – I want to get to know my wife on a deeper level this year. (This is your goal) – To do this I want to set aside 1 day each week to spend as date night with her (This is your plan). You would do this for each of the areas.

#2.  Develop 3 Goal Words – This is a smaller task, but effective as well. Here is a link to last years blog post on my 3 goal words. This is simply boiling down what you would like to see happen this year into a small concise manner.

Whatever your plan works out to be, I would encourage you to have a plan. You will have something that you can look back on and to benchmark your growth.

Simplicity. Such a great thought, yet for many of us a very hard concept to put into practice.

Our lives have gotten busier and demands have gotten heavier. We often find ourselves packing our days and weeks with events, lunches, meetings, and oh, don’t forget the family! The problem comes, when we start to push God out of our lives because of the busyness.

This has been true in my life. I look for the “good things” to do and loose track of the “God things”.

In Matthew 6:33-34 Jesus gives us a great way to priorities and simplify:

1. Seek Him first.
2. “Then” Do everything else.

This weekend at Relevant Church we will be looking into this passage and going deeper on how to really simplify our lives. I hope that you take some time, as I did, and look at you life to see if something is out of balance.

Recently I have been challenged by the Holy Spirit to think about my priorities. I was challenged to think about how much time I am spending really digging into His word compared to leisure reading. Here is what I came away with:

1. A good book, no matter the content, should take the place of His Word. – Being a church planter has led me to some great resources. Now don’t get me wrong, I think we should always read something that will challenge us and teach us something new. But reading “Christian” material in lieu of His Word should never happen.
2. Personal reading time (reading that happens to grow our knowledge) should not have a higher priority that reading God’s Word. – We all have to read something beyond God’s Word, but if we are spending 1-2 hours reading something and then 15-30 minutes reading God’s word for our “devotion” time, something is wrong.  This is something that God really convicted me of. I was spending an hour reading for personal growth and 30 minutes in my devotional time with God.

By no means am I saying that you have to read a certain amount of time, but just a challenge to say “look at your priorities”.

This week at Relevant Church we will be talking about simplifying our lives in the midst of our chaos. If you are in the Charlotte NC area, come and check us out!