Things that hinder your spiritual growth are obstacles or barriers that prevent you from growing in your faith and having a deeper and stronger relationship with God. Hindrances can keep you from experiencing so many things from God such as His love, His joy, His peace etc..
I’ve put together 7 common barriers that hinder our growth in Christ:
1- Certain relationships: This could be our friends, certain family members, or a spouse. The people you form relationships with also have the ability to influence you in both good and bad ways. In order to grow in Christ you have to pay close attention to who you are allowing yourself to hangout with and be around. “Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” -1 Corinthians 15:33. For growth to happen you want to be around the ones who encourage you to get in the word, lift you up in prayer, do Bible studies with you, go to church with you, the ones who are also trying to grow spiritually. But if you allow yourself to be around the ones who, party, drink, cuss, or sin without even taking a minute to look up and ask for forgiveness then chances are you probably shouldn’t hangout with them. You see by you being around them you start to get used to their behavior and before long you’ll be doing the same things they are doing. Instead of allowing that to happen maybe take a step back and see if you taking a step back affects them and makes them want to change their ways.
2- Worldly Distractions: There are so many things in this world that distract us everyday ranging from, Facebook, Instagram, tik tok, snapchat to the things on tv. In order to grow we have to spend less time on these things and more time in the word, more time with God. “But the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful” -Mark 4:19. Have you ever been doing a Bible study and your phone went off? Before you knew it you were checking your phone the second it went off instead of truly focusing on the Bible study you were just doing seconds before you got distracted by your phone. We have to be fully committed and willing to wait to check things until we are done with our Jesus time. He should be our number one priority, not what everyone is doing on social media.
3- Negative Thinking: This happens to the best of us, we all have some shape or form of negative thoughts going through our mind. This goes back to the post I made the other day about replacing the lies with the truth. Chances are those negative thoughts are lies that the enemy has put in your head. The enemy sees you wanting to grow spiritually and he hates that so he sends millions of negative thoughts your way to try and make you trip. We can’t allow that to happen, negative thoughts should be even more of a reason for us to get in the word so that we can replace those negative thoughts with the positive ones God left for us. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” -Philippians 4:8
4- Slothfulness/Laziness: “Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper” -Proverbs 13:4. When it comes to laziness there are so many things the Bible has to say regarding this, God doesn’t like laziness and neither should we! You see if we become lazy in our spiritual journey we start to feel really far from God, we start to notice our mental state changing, we see our hearts changing and becoming hard, we no longer feel his peace or his joy. This happens when we choose to do things like go to bed rather than reading our daily Bible verse first or when we choose to go to bed claiming we are too tired to pray. If you continue in those patterns you will start to drift away. You can’t let the enemy get you there, you might be tired but you have to choose to read that verse anyway, you might be tired but you have to choose to pray anyway. It’s an ongoing process, you can’t get lazy in your spiritual journey, you have to keep choosing to do it even when you don’t feel like it! Don’t allow your tiredness to affect your growth! Continue to choose God no matter the circumstances.
5- Unhealthy Habits and addictions: Unhealthy habits and addictions, when you think of that I’m sure some of the first things that come up in your mind are drinking, drugs and smoking right? Yes those are all unhealthy habits and can become addictions but there are so many unhealthy habits you could be doing without even noticing! Like cussing, white lies, gossiping, shopping, gambling, scrolling social media etc… You see when you allow yourself to do these things on a daily basis without even realizing you are doing them they can lead you down the wrong path and they could be the reason you aren’t growing in your walk with Christ. We really have to self examine ourselves, we need to come to the realization of what we are really doing in our everyday lives and what we seriously need to work on and change. I know this can be hard to truly examine yourself and your ways but once you come to that realization it just might flip a switch inside of you that says oh my gosh I need to change this. Don’t let those unhealthy habits become an addiction, stop them before they stop you! And don’t you dare say you can’t because again can’t never could because he never tried and, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” -Philippians 4:13
6- Bitterness and resentment: These feelings happen when something wrong is done to us that we choose to hold on to instead of letting go. When you choose to hold on to something that someone did that tends to lead to holding grudges. Even if the person apologized and your still holding on to it you are hindering your own growth by simply not forgiving them and letting it go. In order to grow in this area you have to understand in order to be forgiven we also have to forgive others. Lets take it back to when Jesus was on the cross, all these hurtful things were being done to him but yet he still asked God to forgive them for what they were doing. Holding grudges doesn’t help the situation, it doesn’t make you better, it makes it worse because by doing that you are continuously getting hurt by the situation. Choose to forgive, don’t continue to bring up the past hurt, don’t continue to hold resentment against someone, do what Jesus did. I’m not saying that by forgiving the hurt will go away at that moment because it won’t. Every time that situation comes back up you have to choose to keep forgiving.
7-Lack of spiritual discipline and commitment: Growing in Christ is something you really have to be committed to. Its not something you can do one time and think you’re set for life, that’s not how it works its an everyday fight. I’ve come to learn that if you allow yourself to get side tracked on your journey, the joy, the peace, the comfort will all start to slowly feel like they are going away and your mental health will start to show the effects. The trick is you have to stick to it. I know on days when it feels like its been the worst day ever and you are just completely over it and you feel like your in a hole that you can’t get out of, your motivation might not be the greatest. But you really have to discipline yourself, make it a priority so that when days like that do happen you can look forward to getting in the word to lift your spirits up. Coming from a gym rat I know discipline is not easy, there are plenty of days I absolutely don’t feel like going to the gym but I know that if I start that behavior its automatically going to become a pattern until eventually I stop going. The same thing happens on our walk with Christ, if we don’t discipline ourselves and make it an everyday thing well eventually we aren’t going to want to do it at all until one day we realize our mental and spiritual health has went down the drain because we have abandoned our walk. But don’t for one second think just because that happens that its to late for you to start back. Its never to late God has been right there the whole time, He never left your side and that’s the amazing thing about Him, He is always there no matter what we have done or how bad we think we have screwed up this time, He is still there waiting for us to come! Start making a schedule for each day and during that schedule set out a certain time for just you and God, reading the Bible, praying, worshiping. It doesn’t matter where it is, you could be driving to work with worship music blasting, or on your lunch break listening to a sermon, or at night time before bed reading a verse and saying your prayers. Anytime is a good time as long as you are making it a point to get it in each day!
I hope these barriers help you on your walk with Christ. I encourage you to really self examine yourself and see what areas you need to work on or see if any of these barriers are hindering your growth. And please know if you have a strong feeling that you don’t need to do something, you need to stop doing something, or there’s something or someone you don’t need to be around that’s probably God trying to help you grow. Make sure you can understand when its his voice and when its the enemies voice, if it leads you to peace that’s God, if it leads you to worry or stress that’s the enemy.
I used to love horror movies like no ones business, Michael Myers was one of my favorites (yeah I know) until one day I was watching a horror movie with my husband and randomly I got this weird feeling in my stomach, I don’t really know how to explain it except for it wasn’t a good feeling. So I asked him to turn it off, and well the minute he turned it off the feeling went away. Yep that was God saying Hello you’re literally watching the devil run around on the screen WAKE UP! Sense then I haven’t watched a horror movie and I don’t want anything to do with them and I’ve felt so much more growth just from that!
There are so many things God could be telling you, you just have to be willing to listen to his guidance and follow his guidance. I know it can be scary to let go of something you are so used to but please trust me when I say this, the feeling of a weight being lifted that you didn’t even know needed to be lifted is a feeling no one can describe until it happens. You will feel so much more free from things that were holding you back and your growth will take off!
Challenge:
Ask God to show you where you need to improve, Ask him to take away anything that could be hindering your growth in him, Ask him to guide you as you go on this journey. Watch how he works and pay attention to those weird feelings you have about something or someone. Distance yourself from those somethings you have weird feelings about and see if it feels like a weight being lifted. Enjoy the journey and allow God to work in you and through you.
