Four levels of advancement in life (1), By Ayo Akerele

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The First Level of Advancement in Life: Spiritual Advancement

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“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” (Philippians 3:10)

No greater advancement in life is like growing in your walk with God, knowing more about God than you knew yesterday; loving God today more than you loved Him yesterday; growing more fruits than you had yesterday; and giving to God more than you gave yesterday, growth is the greatest achievement after salvation.

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2)

Are you advancing in your walk with God? What’s the temperature of your love for God today relative to when you got born again, cold or hot?

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot” (Revelations 3:15)

Moses cried to God, show me your glory (Exodus 33:18)

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“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18)

The sad thing today is that a lot of believers don’t even look like Christians, much less growing up in that image. It’s a very bad case now. Yet, every other advancement is at the mercy of how you advance with God. It’s important to do a root cause analysis of this problem. Why aren’t we growing?

A tree does not grow for many reasons, some of which include;

1. When it’s planted in the wrong soil. Where you are planted determines whether or not you’ll grow.
2. When it’s not watered in good soil. The word of God is the water.
3. When scavengers or enemies eat it up. This is called sabotage.
4. When tares or other bad seeds are planted together with it to compete for the same nutrients (Matthew 13:24-30)

“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn (Matthew 13:24-30)

You must desire to advance in your walk with Jesus, growing spiritually every day. Now here are some practical ways of growing and advancing in our walk with God

1. First you must be a seed from the kingdom. You must be genuinely saved.
2. You must find yourself planted in a good church. In Psalm 92:13, the Bible says, “Those who are planted in the house of the Lord Shall flourish in the courts of our God.”
3. As you can’t grow naturally without physical food, you won’t grow spiritually without spiritual food. This includes access to solid word of God and commitment to prayers.
4. Spiritual fellowship with other believers even outside of a local church community
5. You must always have a passion to know God more. All of the above will create the hunger in you to seek God’s face regularly.

You must not lose your first love. You must advance in your walk with Jesus.

The Second Level of Advancement in Life: Advancement in Personal Responsibilities

“And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. Please, let us go to the Jordan, and let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell” (2 Kings 6:1-2)

Do you want to go forward in life? Do you want to advance in life? Do you think God is solely responsible for moving you forward? Never is it found in scriptures, or would you see it in life that God solely bumps people into progress. It is a joint responsibility between you and God. Many believers aren’t making progress majorly because they are doing nothing to push themselves forward; they are only praying about it. Even when God is initiating the journey towards advancement, He will ask the party involved to take responsibility. Any faith that makes God to be solely responsible for all affairs of your life is an irresponsible faith. This is one of the major areas of weaknesses in the church, particularly within the black community.

Let’s look at some Biblical examples.

Abraham’s advancement in life as initiated in Genesis 12:1-2 saw Abraham responding to divine instructions for his desired change in life. If he did not advance, God won’t advance him.

The children of Israel were instructed by God in Deuteronomy 1:6-7 to step forward. If they didn’t move forward, they would die on the same spot.

Here are some specific things you must commit to, to advance your life towards God’s desired destination for your life.

1. You must have the desire for expansion and advancement in life knowing that enlargement is not a sin and increase is not wrong (Psalm 115:14; Isaiah 54: 2-3).
2. You must have a mindset for advancement and enlargement (Proverbs 23:7). The Israelites saw themselves as grasshoppers in Numbers 13:33. Consequently, most of that generation perished in the wilderness.
3. You must have a specific vision of your desired scale and scope of advancement. God asked Jeremiah, “What do you see? (Jeremiah 1:11-12). Jeremiah would advance to the degree of the scope of his vision.
4. You must be positive and supportive of other people’s advancement in life. In Romans 12:15, the Bible says, “rejoice with those who rejoice. Lot went with Abraham. In Genesis 13:5, the Bible says, “Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents”, meaning that Lot was positively influenced and inspired by Abraham until he also became successful.
5. You must pray about your advancement. It’s a spiritual battle to shift position.
6. You must associate with kingdom people who are advancing.

Ayo Akerele is the senior pastor of Rhema Assembly and the founder of the Voice of the Watchmen Ministries in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached through [email protected]