The Most-Overlooked Spiritual Growth Habit

A simple focus

If you’re a sprinter, there’s all kinds of work you can put in to improve your 100 meter time. But no matter how much work you put in, if you’re trying to run the race with a backpack full of rocks you’re always going to be limited. 

Sometimes improvement is about what we remove as much as it is about what we add.

Similarly, as we try to grow spiritually, a stronger prayer life, better Bible study habits, more fellowship, and the like, are vitally important. 

But there's one often overlooked practice in our spiritual growth that can greatly increase our results.

That practice?

The targeting of specific sins in our lives.

Anytime someone struggles with one of the things we think of as “big sins,” there’s a heavy emphasis on overcoming it. 

The porn addict, the mother with anger outbursts, the compulsive gambler, the habitual liar, the drunk—they’re all well aware of their sins, and many are working on them night and day.

But when you look at the kinds of sins that make the numerous NT lists, there are so many subversive, overlooked, everyday sins in there to work on, like...

Gossip.

Laziness.

Ingratitude.

Covetousness.

Strife.

Unwillingness to forgive.

Lacking self-control.

And, if you’ve gotten this far and think “Well, I don’t actually have any struggles,” well, then pride and dishonesty might be your problem.

We can all agree that we’ll never be perfect in this life (Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8). We can either resign ourselves to that and pass it off as ok (“May it never be” - Romans 6:1-2), or we can take that as a challenge. And if we truly hate sin, and want it removed from our lives, the best thing we can do is to constantly have a sin that we’re dragging into the ring to vanquish.

When we do this, the benefits are numerous. A few you’ll notice right away:

Acknowledging and fighting our own sin humbles us.

It’s hard to feel superior to others when we hate our own shortcomings more than anyone else’s. And this humility increases our dependence on God. Fighting sin is hard, and we are utterly incapable of conquering it on our own (Romans 7-8).

Acknowledging and fighting our own sin draws us nearer to God.

When we realize our inability to defeat sin alone, and when we grasp that God continues to loves us and forgive us even though we stumble in our efforts, our love for Him only grows.

Acknowledging and fighting our own sin renews our hope.

When we make it one of our life goals to rid ourselves from sin, the resurrection gets sweeter and sweeter every day. One day we won’t have to fight these battles anymore. One day we won’t have to be at war with ourselves and our own bent desires. One day we’ll be like our sinless Savior (Romans 8:29).

So, here’s my challenge to you:

• Take stock of your life, and pick one sin you can begin working on.

• Set up habits to make yourself aware of when you’re sliding into it. For example, some people use a “swear jar” to grow cognizant of how often they use foul language. You don’t have to do that, but doing something to acknowledge every time you catch yourself gossiping, or worrying, or coveting, or whatever it may be, and you’ll be able to begin to get to work.

• Pray about it.

• Memorize related verses.

• Confess it to someone, and give them permission to call you out if they see you doing it.

• Once you feel you’ve grown in this area, pray thanks for God’s guidance, stay humble, remain vigilant, and move on to another one.

This article first appeared on Focus+