The Lord has really put ‘growth’ on my heart this year for our Ladies Who Love Christ. Growing in His Word and developing intimacy with Christ is the greatest investment we will ever make with our time.  In a world that is FULL of distraction and sometimes seemingly ‘good’ things, it can take away from our desire to spend time GROWING in our relationship with Jesus Christ. There are always things vying for our attention and if we aren’t careful, our faith can be stifled and our growth in Christ stunted.

I want you to keep this question at the forefront of your mind as you read this: Is Your Faith Growing? I want you to answer this openly and honestly before Jesus because He is not here to condemn you but rather to gently and loving draw you to Himself. He wants you to GROW stronger in your faith each day so that you can be a vessel for Him to  speak to a world that is dry and parched for His love. How can others truly see and feel and know the pure deep love for Christ if we as His representatives aren’t taking time to fully know Him?

In Matthew 5:14 Jesus tells us that “we are the LIGHT of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

We must make every effort to grow in intimacy with Jesus and to build our faith daily. To fully saturate this world with the love of Christ, we must know the love of Christ. To know Christ fully we must spend time building our faith and our relationship with Him.

Can you imagine what an amazing thought it is to know you have fully invested in and lived out your relationship with Christ so that on the day you see Him face to face He can say “Job well done my good and faithful servant.”

Let this be the AIM of our life. 

Below are 5 ways that we (as Ladies Who Love Christ) can grow in our faith & pursue the highest calling on our life.

1. Stay in His Word Daily: Opening The Word of God shouldn’t be an ‘option’ in our life but rather a lifeline. Scripture is God’s breathed Word and absolutely essential to helping us develop and strengthen our faith. Full of truths to help us grow, gain strength and a tool to empower us to fight the enemy, it must not be looked at flippantly rather with reverence and the seriousness of a Lady set on pursuing God’s heart. When our faith wavers, it is the Word of God that infuses us, speaks to us, directs and guides us. Let us grow by opening His Word EACH DAY.
2. Surround Yourself With A Community: We are not meant to do life alone. Surrounding yourself with strong Godly friends who can lift you up and encourage you is key. How can your faith stay strengthened when we are disconnected? The enemy works his best schemes in isolation. In a Community of believers you can be challenged to grow your faith, you can ask the tough questions in a trusted environment and The Lord can use each person as He has designed them in the body of Christ. Plug in to a group, a Bible Study or get involved in your Church. Seek likeminded sisters in Christ who WANT to encourage you and see you grow in your faith.
3. Change Your Habits: As a Health Coach, I am often focused on helping my team to change their habits. You simply cannot adopt a healthy lifestyle surrounding yourself with the ‘old’ things that got you to where you are. The same goes with our spiritual health and developing our relationship with Christ. You have to seek to develop new habits. Maybe it is the entertainment you engage in or what you watch or listen to. Changing out your ‘worldly’ habits for Christ honoring habits will help you to flourish and grow in your faith! The Lord wants to use you in mighty ways but what you preach, how you speak and how you act must match up. Remember, people always watch what we do. The more you know the heart of God, the less you want to engage in the old things that produce no fruit.
4. Give His Church Priority in Your Life: Ok, there is going to be some tough love here. So many people have shared stories of being hurt in the Church. I get it, we are a bunch of imperfect humans living out life. I am not downplaying your hurt or your pain but I want to lovingly challenge you with this thought. If the Church mattered as much to Christ as it did, then it should matter to us. If we allow the enemy to work through people to keep us away from functioning as a part of the Church then we are playing right into his hands. We must be willing to lay down these things and focus on being a heathy, wholesome part of the Church. The Church does SO much to show the love of God and if we allow division to keep us ‘isolated’ our faith shall surely be stunted. I encourage you to find a place where you can grow and plug in. People are imperfect but by the grace of God and what He wants to do in us, we can set aside our differences and selfishness (I told you, tough love) to really prioritize what mattered to JESUS CHRIST.
5. Strengthen Your Prayer Life: Can you imagine being in a relationship without conversation? Can you imagine waking to the love of your life each day and literally not saying a word to them? I hardly doubt the relationship would grow and flourish. Our FAITH LIFE is strengthened in prayer. Our hearts grow closer to Him the more we speak to Him. Through prayer we are plugged into the very lifeline that breathed breath into our lungs. We come to trust the heart of God as we develop our relationship with Him through the intimacy of prayer. Sometimes it is speaking but more times that not, it is listening. My faith which has been shaky, wavering and weak at times in my life was strengthened in the very minutes in which I humbled myself on my knees in prayer to Jesus. He gave me peace that surpasses understanding, He strengthened my soul. If you want to grow in your faith, you must grow your prayer life.

I hope these things encourage you to want to prioritize your faith life with Jesus over everything else. He has such mighty plans for us but if we can remain distracted chasing the things that do not matter in place of the things that do, we will not be nearly the effective vessels for Him that I believe He created us for.

I challenge you to take these 5 simple things over the next few months and watch how much stronger your faith life grows! Remember, our mission around ‘Ladies Who Love Christ Ministries’ is to grow girl! Unlike ever before! It starts with you going back to the very first question I asked at the beginning: Is Your Faith Life Growing? If not, it is time to prioritize Jesus over everything else and watch what He does through it.

God Bless you sweet Lady Who Loves Christ. I am blessed to have you here growing with us!

Blessings,

Ashley Poptodorova