Week 3 – Spiritual Growth Development

Celebration of Discipline Bible Study
Prepared by: Rev. Willetta Ar-Rahmaan
Click here to download: Week 3 – Spiritual Growth Development


For the past two weeks we talked about Spiritual Discipline and how they transform us from the inside. We also recognize that if we treat the disciplines as laws instead of a gift from God we have set ourselves up for failure and legalism. Now that we have a better understanding of the disciplines, let us look at the stages involved in spiritual growth development. This is a process and there are no shortcuts in spiritual growth.

There are five stages in our spiritual growth development: Infant/Baby, Toddler, Child, Young Adult and Adult. As we noticed each of these stages can be compared to the stages of human development. Over the next few weeks we will cover these stages and compare them to the human development at each stage. As we know the first year of growth is very critical. This is the stage of nurturing, assurance and gentleness. During the first year of a baby life their nourishment comes from milk either the mother’s milk or formula. When a newborn baby is brought home from the hospital the baby will sleep, get acclimated to the sounds and motions outside of the womb and rely on a parent to provide the nourishment of milk. Milk is the basic necessity for an infant during the first year of growth. According to Wikipedia, “Breastfeeding promotes health, helps to prevent disease, and reduces health care and feeding costs”.

Therefore, when we look at the first year of spiritual development we notice a similar pattern. When one is born again, they need the same nurturing, assurance, gentleness and so on. The difference between a newborn baby and a born again Christian is the age factor. When we are newborns of the spirit we are immature spiritually, but physically walking, talking and have our own presuppositions in life because we have heard and seen a lot. We have knowledge of God but not a deep knowledge. The spiritual baby as Dr. Cleophus LaRue stated during a revival one time, “can be gray haired babies”. This is an indication that we have the ability to accept Christ during any age in life and whatever the age we are still babies in the beginning.

As a baby needs milk to grow, as born again Christians we need the word of God and a mature Christian to help guide us. The key word is to guide us not make us like them but give us the tools necessary for the growth. When one accept Christ we want to be sure we made the right decision and if there is any doubt during the first year this is when many will walk away.

Let us look at a few scriptures as it relates to the nourishment of a new Christian.

1 Peter 2:2 - Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 And so, brothers and sisters,a I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?

Hebrews 5:12-14 - For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; 13 for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.


As you read each of these scriptures, think back to the time when you first accepted Christ. Was it hard for you to grasp what was being taught to you? Was the word being force-fed to you? Where you taught as a mature Christian knowing you lacked the foundation?

Going Deeper:

1. How would you handle your first church conference as a new Christian with allegations and insults being hurled at each other?
2. Are there times you feel like an infant/baby on this journey?
3. Why is it hard to move from the baby stage and grow as a child of God?


Additional lesson
http://www.gospelway.com/christianlife/steps_maturity.php