Date: 8th March, 2026
Theme: Spiritual Growth: Understanding the Whats and Hows of growing up unto God’s life in our souls
Topic: Understanding Spiritual Growth
Minister: Pastor David Kilanko
(Genesis 1:27) — So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
(Genesis 2:7) — “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
(Genesis 2:16-17) — And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: [17] But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
(1 Thess. 5:23) — And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(Eph. 4:11-15) — And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Message begins…
The reason the Lord gave us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is for us to grow. It’s good to know that without these ministry gifts, we cannot grow. Even though we have our bibles, and can seek God in our secret places, we still won’t be able to grow without the ordained way God has prescribed for us. The key to growing up is to discern the gifts that God has given and align under them. Saints can’t be perfected, ministry can’t prosper and no one can be edified except by how God has planned it.
There are arguments in some quarters that Christians and other religions serve the same God. But this isn’t true. Jesus alone is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6); the only way to the Father is Jesus, and the way to Jesus is through the ministry gifts which He has set. Someone had to preach for us to be saved in our spirits. (Rom. 10:14-15) — How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
We see in the scripture above again that God cannot work salvation in our souls without raising and sending a preacher. Jesus blessing the body with ministry gifts is the way He sends His ministers. We should desire to grow, and not just remain as children. The nature of Children is that they are tossed to and fro. Being a child is a state, just like being carnal also is a state. However, God doesn’t want us to remain babies. In this season where the Lord is talking about harvest, we need to grow. For our baskets to be tightened and stronger, everyone of us must grow.
Adam still needed to grow because he wasn’t created and made perfect. If Adam was perfect he wouldn’t have been susceptible to Satan which killed his Spirit. To grow up spiritually is to grow up into the image and likeness of God. It is not about speaking in tongues but to grow up into the life of God. That we can spend a lot of time in prayers, or operate in gifts and manifestation of the spirit doesn’t mean we have grown, because all those things don’t touch our nature. A real test of spiritual growth is seen in our nature; nature of love, of patience, long-suffering e.t.c
The difference between Man and Angels is that Angels can’t grow up into maturity. Angels cannot change state. Lucifer desired to grow and become like God and then sinned and became corrupted because he was not supposed to change state.. The opposite is so for Man. Man is made to grow. Even Jesus was born in the form of man and had to grow. He wasn’t born as God, He was fully man, and could have been killed by Herod in his infant, but He grew.
Every living thing can grow. Infact, the sign of a living thing is MR NIGER D, so everything that has life can grow. But what makes the growth of Man special is that Man can grow to be like God; this is a blessing. The need for man to grow spiritually into the life of God is what makes Man special, and blessed.
By the design of God, man is framed to grow spiritually unto perfection out of just being in the estate of a man to coming into the estate and life of God.
(Hebrews 1:7-8) — And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. — God made this declaration to Jesus. God cannot say this of Angels, let alone animals. But man is privileged that God can proclaim Godhood upon him. For angels again, it’s a sin to desire to become like God, for us as men, it should be our greatest desire. What made Adam and Eve fall was not their desire to be like God but how they wanted to go about it. God is process oriented and you must go through the process.
Spiritual growth is not just growing for growing sake, it is for us to come into the nature and life of God. It is good to know that in Spiritual growth, we grow to become like God. One of the growths that we will also grow into is the way God can’t be tempted and deceived. If we remain children we will be tossed to and fro and we will be susceptible to Satan and spirits that lie in wait to deceive. This is why we need to grow. We can never beat Satan on a low growth level, we need to go up, and to go up is to grow up.
We need to grow up so that we can be perfect even as our Lord Jesus is perfect. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48). When we are faced with life issues and we react in a way not known to flesh, then we have grown. Our growth is measured by how much of God we have acquired and not by titles.
We grow to come into a higher and eternal estate in God. Our eternal estate will be determined by the life we have trapped in our souls. It is how meek, how gentle, how patient, and all of those natures that will determine our eternal lot and inheritance.
We are to grow to overcome the enemies of God’s life. It is only those that finish the works and overcome that will be rewarded as seen in
Revelation 2:17. We need to grow up and change if we must overcome.
Growing up in the spirit will make us sinless. It is possible to be sinless! This is why we must grow. Everything that heaven is supplying to us is so that we can eat it and become more like God. We see the height of spiritual growth in Jesus. Though He knew Judas Iscariot would betray him from the beginning, yet He still related to him in love and didn’t tell any of the disciples about it. Jesus was able to show this conversation because He was sinless, deathless and incorruptible. We too can get here. We can grow even as Jesus grew.
The part of Man that grows is the soul. The soul grows by knowledge. Knowledge isn’t letters of the Bible or just quoting scriptures. It is good to know the scriptures but the knowledge that will make the soul grow is that which it has heard, seen, looked upon and handled by instructions that the Lord brings. So, through commandments, the soul will trap life and grow into the life of God.
We trust God to be burdened with a great desire to grow till we lay hold on the head, which is Christ.
ROUND OFF BY PST. LAIDE OLANIYAN
(Mark 4:24-29) — And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
Our Lord Jesus is showing how growth happens; that growth is not rocket science. The foundation and process of growth is linked to hearing.
(Rom. 10:13-14) — For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Naturally, as long as we eat, sleep, and exercise, we set the law of growth in motion. Growth is a natural consequence of certain actions or inactions we take. As long as the requirements of growth are met, growth becomes inevitable; nothing can stop or withhold you.
We must know that hearing is not the only requirement for growth. Hearing is the basket of resources that first comes to you. But when a seed is cast into the heart. It sets in motion its own laws and interactions; physical and chemical reactions happen that make the deed grow. The person that cast the seed is no longer involved but laws within the seed and the earth have been activated. In the same vein, once the word is cast, different laws of the heart are activated. The roots of the seed pierces the heart at different degrees because of growth. The meaning that the same word is having in a person’s heart might not be the same meaning it’s having in another heart because of growth. The seed we have received from God has all of the laws of growth in it. But it needs to be in the right environment [just like a seed in the ground, which needs sunlight and water] to grow.
The kingdom of God is like that. A person plants a seed and goes to sleep night and day, and the seed will spring forth but the prosperity of the seed is determined by the quality of the earth, how nutrient fed the earth is; this will determine the kind of laws that will awaken in the seed.
Two things sustain the seed: water from within the earth and water from an external force, to make food of it. We should make food from all the things that are surrounding us. We need adequate watering.
The difficulties we are facing are a resource from God but many times, we don’t have enough water and sunlight to maximize them for growth. When we grow up inside, we will be able to handle the knowledge of this world and where to put it. Laws are in the seed and waiting for their seasons to be activated. The seed of the word that we receive has all of the laws inside but waiting for the right environment and circumstances to be activated for you to come into full bloom.
A seed that has brought forth just the blade or the ear has not fully grown (Mark 4:28). It’s good we rejoice at a certain level of growth, but what God really wants to reap from our growth is a full corn. Every mileage of growth is important but we cannot just stop anywhere, we should aim for fullness, we should aim to come to the full capacity of growth that God has ordained for us. Every earth or heart should desire to yield full strength but the secret is hearing.
The secret of growth comes from hearing. The seed is planted in us through hearing, and it is also watered by hearing. The more we hear, we more grow. When Satan wants to attack our growth, the first thing he does is to make us dull of hearing. Hearing is important to grow, it’s what activates the motions of growth, as we keep hearing, planting in us happens, watering happens and laws of growth will be activated in us. We must keep hearing and hearing if we will grow till the end. It’s not possible to hear everything that we need to know at once.
We must keep hearing at different seasons, hearing different materials consistently. Hearing can be tiresome and feel like nagging. Hearing the same thing over and over can feel boring. When we hear new things, there’s a way we can feel awake but if it’s something we’ve known already and even when we have not started doing it, we tend to get tired and want to live to the next gbingBut therein is our growth. If we must grow, we must fight to labour in hearing. (2 Peter 1:12, Philippians 3:1) It’s just like in our nature, we eat rice everyday, yet we keep eating it because our survival is dependent on it.
TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION
It has only just begun,
It’s not a past,
Even the work that I am set to do,
I am doing it now
For you see, I am coming,
I came and I’ll still come again
Purge you from silver to gold
Thoroughly purge you
Try gold, you’re going to gold
It’s not past, now is the season of the spirit
You’re in the season of the spirit.
That covenant, I want to make it with everyone of you,
Now is the time of salvation,
Thorough purging till you move from bronze to silver to gold.