Dharius Daniels - Why You're NOT Growing Spiritually

Hey, listen to me. I have a question, and I have an answer. The question is: Why is it that many people don’t grow in the way they want to, and in the way they can, spiritually? That’s the question. In this video, I’m going to give you the answer. If you’re ready to take your spiritual life to the next level, I want you to stay engaged. I’m getting ready to show you how.

I often say this: Your spiritual life is not the only important part of your life, but it is the most important part because it affects every other area that’s essential. When you become better spiritually, it helps you emotionally. When you become better spiritually, it helps you relationally. When you become better spiritually, it helps you professionally. When you become better spiritually, it helps you financially. There’s no area of your life that is not directly or indirectly impacted by spiritual growth. It is the most crucial kind of growth because spiritual growth contributes the most to your quality of life.

I don’t know if you know this, but happiness or joy is an inside job. Your external relationships may contribute to your happiness, but they don’t determine it. It’s an inside job. Your profession may contribute to your happiness, but it doesn’t determine it. That’s also an inside job. Your finances contribute, but they don’t determine your happiness; it’s an inside job.

So if there is an area where we want to be intentional, aggressive, and assertive in growth, it’s the spiritual area. The question becomes: How do I grow not just incrementally but exponentially in that area, and why is it that so many people don’t experience the kind of growth they can and want to? The answer is really in two words, and I’m going to give them to you right now: spiritual temperaments.

What do I mean by that? A spiritual temperament is really your orientation toward… Now, let me be very clear: When I say «spiritual temperaments,» a lot of people confuse it with personality types. That’s not what I’m referring to here, and I will show you the difference in just a second. When I talk about spiritual temperaments, I’m speaking about your orientation towards the specific practice of certain spiritual disciplines in a way that allows those disciplines to serve you at the highest and best level.

What do I mean by that? There are spiritual exercises or disciplines in the Bible that are there to help you and me grow. Prayer is a spiritual discipline or exercise. The study of scripture, fasting, solitude, worship, serving, silence—these are all spiritual disciplines and exercises that help us grow spiritually. So if I’m going to grow, I have to do all of these things. They are what Dallas Willard calls «means of grace.»

See, watch this: We get to choose if we grow, but God chooses the ways we grow. So when I say something as a means of grace, it is what God has chosen to use to grow us. And what God says is, «I’m going to use these spiritual exercises—prayer, the study of scripture, fasting, service, worship, solitude, biblical meditation. I’m going to use these disciplines as exercises to strengthen you spiritually.»

Now here’s the problem. Let’s be honest: Many people aren’t growing as they could because they have not been trained on what the exercises actually are. Many people—I want you to catch this—only see prayer as a response to crisis, not as an avenue for intimacy. Prayer is not just something I use to respond to trouble; it’s something I use to create intimacy with God. This means that when prayer is used in this way, I don’t just do talking—I do listening.

Listen, when you get better spiritually, everything gets better. Your spiritual life is not the only important part of your life; it is the most important part because it affects every other part. However, you don’t get stronger spiritually by accident; it takes intentionality. You need to get fed, and you have to learn how to understand, interpret, apply, and explain the Bible. The Bible is the blueprint to your best life.

And I’m going to tell you: Sunday is not enough to provide you with the tools that you need to improve your understanding of the Bible. I want you to join me in my community called Bible You, where I help you elevate your understanding, application, and explanation of the Bible to another level.

When it comes to the study of scripture, many people are trying to study it, but they are often not taught where to start. So they open up the Bible, read Leviticus, and think, «I’m confused.» Then they read Numbers and get lost as well. Many people engage in Bible reading plans; they say, «I read the whole Bible in one year.» The question is not how much of the Bible you read, but how much of the Bible gets into you.

Many of us, when it comes to reading scripture, have been taught about quantity, not quality. There are these finishing goals: people say, «I’m going to read the whole Bible in a year» or «I’m going to read a chapter every day.» There is something important about acquiring an understanding of scripture; I get that. Yet, at the same time, when you’re reading to grow, you don’t read to finish. You read to…