Focusing on Our Spiritual Growth
A transcript of the Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM), from a teaching by Pastor Leke Omilana, in Revelation Hour (RH) on Saturday, January 25th, 2025.
As we start the year and prepare for what the Lord will do, the Spirit is emphasizing one central message: the Lord wants us to be intentional about our growth and change above all else. It is as though the Lord is calling us to wake up and stay focused, and not pay any attention to the distractions the enemy might pose against us. There is an adversary who seeks to hinder our response to God.
When a baby grows, there is not much opposition to it. When a tree grows, you plant a seed, and as it is watered, it begins to sprout. The growth of that tree is not significantly hindered by resistance. Nothing actively opposes the tree’s growth. There are even seeds you neither water nor intentionally plant; you simply throw them on the ground and later find a tree. This illustrates how unintentional natural growth can be.
However, spiritual growth cannot be likened to this method—just hearing and expecting growth. In spiritual growth, we grow against opposition and resistance. True spiritual growth means dying to an opposition or overcoming something within ourselves. If we are growing against opposition, then there must be intentionality in our growth. We cannot simply fold our hands, think, or assume that as long as we keep attending meetings and hearing, we are growing. Satan has put structures in place within us to oppose spiritual growth.
Levels of Christian Growth
1 Corinthains 3:1-2
“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. [2] I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.”
We all got born again and started as babies in Christ within our souls. Our souls were added to the church and we became babies in Christ. This baby in Christ is regarded as someone who is carnal. The next level of spiritual maturity after babyhood is to become a child Eph 4:14, 1 Cor 13:11).
Another level of growth is when he becomes a man, and from being a man, he grows further into the realm of the fathers (1 Jn. 2:12-13). The realm of fathers is divided into little children, young men, and fathers. All of these stages represent growth levels that God expects us to progress through until we ultimately sit on the throne.
Each of these growth levels—from a babe to a child, to a man, to a father—occurs because you have fought against opposition. You fought against opposition commensurate with that level of growth. It is not possible to have age in the spirit without fighting the equivalent age of Satan in that level—that age that Satan has embedded as materials inside our soul.
Psalm 51:5
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.”
When we were born, iniquity and sin shaped and framed our bodies. When the soul enters the body, it takes on the frame of iniquity. When Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he swallowed the entirety of the satanic seed (Gen. 3:6). That seed began to speak within him, instructing him to carry out certain actions, but he resisted. However, Cain did not resist. Cain yielded to the way of that seed (Jude 11). The seed Adam swallowed was the fullness of the satanic seed that entered humanity. Adam did not make a covenant with the seed, but Cain did. From one generation to the next, this covenant with hell and death was passed on (Isa. 28:18).
When we got born again, the things of Satan existed in seed form within us; this means we have not yet committed to them for them to become our estate. However, the fact that we have not committed to them does not mean we have not cut a covenant. These covenants have been transferred from one generation to another, so that even though these things remain in seed form, they take the shape of natures formed within our souls.
All the different stages of Satan’s growth are domiciled within our souls. Although we have not entered into these estates, as we grow, we encounter the various levels of life that exist within Satan.
1 Corinthians 3:1
“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.”
Carnality is not merely a concept in our minds but a nature embedded in our hearts. Our soul is like a land where Satan has already laid the foundation and started constructing his life, with the intention of completing it within us. All the materials needed for this construction are already on site. These materials not only exist but also speak, just like the construction itself. For instance, imagine a soul where Satan intends to build a ten-story structure. If two stories have already been caked/constructed in a soul, that represents a nature that has been solidified within him—a part of the structure he has already committed to.
The materials needed to complete the ten-story building are already present in the soul, and these materials behave like the nature itself. As he strives to overcome the two stories that have already been constructed, he must also deal with the materials on site, or they will eventually be used to build more structures in the soul.
We must not only overcome the nature that Satan has already formed in us but also address the materials Satan has placed in our souls, treating them as seriously as the nature already established. These materials are the nature of Satan in potential form.
Our growth is not without opposition to these materials. If we are to grow spiritually, we must confront and fight against the works of Satan that are alive within us. These works are not dormant; they live, they breathe, and they speak. They instruct us and try to lead us astray. We must fight these living spirits in our soul, as well as the living entities of evil spirits that Satan has placed to monitor them. Satan positions these entities as builders, ensuring that the materials in our soul become structures within us.
The Intentionality of Growth
Our growth requires intentionality. We cannot grow if we do not fight against the laws in our soul and the entities that Satan places to solidify those things as nature within us.
It is possible for us to grow from a babe to a child, while Satan continues his own level of growth, carrying it from a child to his type of man.
1 John 2:15-16
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
The lust of the flesh is a nature that can be formed in the soul, which has been formed in the soul of many people on earth; it is also a material. Lust of the eyes can also be a nature and a potential material to turn into a nature. The same goes for pride of life. All these levels are negative christs in Satan and all these levels of nature in Satan want to give birth to the soul. They are already in the soul and they want to form you. We got born again with these lusts in our souls.
As we overcome the lust of the flesh, we have the lust of the eyes to combat. And the lust of the eyes awakens and wants to give birth to us. If we overcome the lust of the flesh, we can still fall prey to the others. You can be doing well in the faith but if you stop growing, you will grow in another direction.
We can never stop growing. It is either we grow in the Lord or Satan takes over the growth process, not from baby form but from where we stopped growing in Christ. Diathrophes or Demas didn’t start as someone who had not overcome evil spirits. He must have fought till he stopped fighting and stopped growing. Then, Satan picked it up from there. Satan will not start his growth from level zero. He picks it up from where you stop. The level at which you stop is the exposure of Satan that you are going to have to give birth to in your soul.
If we decide not to grow in Christ, we have the corruptible seed that wants to give birth to us. And that corruptible seed is already in the soul. We can’t just remain in Christ without growth because very soon, the corruptible seed will come and minister to us in the language that we will understand.
We grow spiritually to meet higher works of Satan inside of us. As we keep growing, we meet greater works of Satan. Most times, we think the warfare becomes lenient as we grow up but the more we grow up, the more likely we are not to make it. This is so because the vile spirits we will meet are stronger, fiercer and more deadly than the combination of all the evil spirits we overcame. All the lesser angels are not equal to a cherubim.
If we overcome principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world and stand face to face to a spiritual wickedness, the fight is more intense because it is as if you are fighting a warfare you have never experienced before. This shows the demand for spiritual growth. The more we grow, the more likely it is for us to decide not to grow again because the battle becomes fiercer. As we keep growing, we meet more deadly evil spirits that want to make us stop growing. Spiritual growth is not just like natural growth that happens without fighting (1 Tim. 6:12). For any life we will lay hold of, we must have a mentality of violence, force, pressing and pushing. We cannot relax.
We can be under the atmosphere of the spirit and not be growing because hearing alone doesn’t equate growth (James 1:22). There is a deceit around just hearing the word.
James 1:22
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
This was an everlasting church and they had grown to a very great level. The deceit around hearing can be found in an everlasting setting. Hearing alone is so powerful and enough to deceive the soul into thinking that he is growing.
Spiritual growth is the wrestling with nature in the heart. This can be seen when it comes to values, priorities or decision making, because it is what is inherent in us that will come out and not what has been taught in meetings. High mindedness is a nature in the heart and this nature is what makes spiritual growth a thing of combat.
We can bask in the euphoria of hearing only, deceiving ourselves and yet our nature is not being affected. There is a gap between what the mind knows and what the heart knows. It is very possible to counsel others with words that are being ministered because we have it stored in our mind, but it is not yet a nature in our souls.
To really grow, we must be intentional about how standards will turn into nature in our heart. Growth is the changing of nature in our heart.
Roman 12:2
“…But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
The renewing or the washing of the mind goes first before transformation. God will first wash the mind with His standards and His high judgements before there can be a transformation in the heart.
Growing in Grace and Knowledge
2 Peter 3:18
“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ…”
According to scriptures, the two aspects we are required to grow in is in grace and in knowledge. We ought to grow within an allocation of grace as it comes. Growth is beyond knowing the standards required for change of nature; growth is actually the experience of a change of nature within the heart. It is only within the allocation of grace and of knowledge that change of nature can be acquired in the heart.
Doing good deeds can make some favour come but when it comes to the blessing of growth, we must locate grace and knowledge. You can do something as good as giving your body to be burnt which is a great feat but without grace and knowledge, you will not grow. A man can obey God in several ways outside the allocation of grace and knowledge.
Knowledge begins the cycle of growth. A believer that does not come into the allocation of knowledge cannot have spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is the metamorphosis taking place in the soul. Getting wiser as a Christian is not equal to spiritual growth, because there must be a metamorphosis or change of nature occurring in the heart for growth to occur. Nature is a mystery in the heart that only the grace of God and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus can handle. Doing well as a believer but within the boundary of a carnal nature, is not equal to spiritual growth. A man can have a carnal nature and yet be doing good but is not growing because he has not found knowledge (1Tim. 2:4).
Knowledge which is called precept is the atmosphere wherein growth can occur. We cannot locate grace without knowledge, and to have multiplication of grace, we need knowledge (2Pet. 1:2). Knowledge is God’s prescribed understanding for us to know. We can know many things in the Bible and get some personal revelations but there is a particular arrangement of scripture we must see before there can be an alteration of wrong natures in the heart.
There is God’s prescribed way for us to know scriptures in order for us to have hope of growth, and God raises men whom He has authorized to see the prescribed way. We can be blessed by a revelation but there are alignments God kept and that only one with authority can excavate. If we do not know this prescribed knowledge and arrangement of scripture the way the Holy Ghost wants us to see it, wrong natures cannot be altered in the heart. It is this alignment of precept upon precept that is the access to grace for the alteration of nature in the heart. This is not grace for moral lessons but for evolution in the soul.
We cannot despise the knowledge of scripture the way the Holy Ghost wants it to be known. Precepts must be upon precept. If we decide not to follow the doctrine the Lord is giving to us, and choose to just live a “normal Christian life”, we would do “good things” and have testimony of doing good according to the definition of others but we have stopped growing. We can even fall into the deception of thinking that our lives have gotten better because we no longer have our sins being revealed to us and there is a false joy in that.
Anytime we break into knowledge, we receive grace that makes us see sin. Satan can elaborate on this to make us feel like we have a lot to handle or things to repent of compared to others who are not hearing the word, when in actual fact, every man has the issue of sin but may seem to have no issues.
As believers who are seeing the right arrangement of scriptures, we might feel like our lives are getting worse because we keep seeing our sins being revealed before us, but we need to know that in actual fact, the revelation of our sins is the first step to its being dealt with. The gravity of sin will not be shown constantly to someone who is not given to knowledge. As you hear the truth, you will realize that you have sin and you will constantly see what to repent of.
The exposure of our sins by light might make us feel like we have a lot of issues due to the constant repentant heart from sin being revealed to us, and somewhere we might desire to be free from this lifestyle of godly sorrow, but this godly sorrow is needed for what grace has come to do (2 Cor.7:10)). One evidence that grace is present is soberness, but the external joy of being free from the consciousness of sin is Satan’s deception to make man think that he does not have issues; it is an excitement of the flesh.
Change of nature in the soul begins when we are exposed to knowledge. We cannot afford to be slacking towards receiving knowledge because we think we have heard enough. We must grow in the knowledge we have. God has patterned the arrangement of scriptures after knowledge. Grace appears when we receive knowledge (Tit. 2:11), and grace will enlighten us to see the way and also puts a sketch of the growth pattern it wants to work in our soul. Without this sketch, we will not have the concrete image of the intended growth pattern in the heart.
Knowledge imprints a sketch in our soul and illuminates us to see grace that will appear to us. The appearance of grace is something that we wait for as we hear knowledge. We must look for the grace of God unto a nature change in the heart. Grace is a document of life that God gives and in it are animations of the Way inside it. This document will instruct us.
Not every obedience will cause nature change but a prescribed obedience, after the order of what grace gives. It is okay to emulate good conversations that we see, but this emulation is not equal to the change of nature in the heart. If we settle only with emulations, we will find it difficult to know which conversation to emulate in particular scenarios.
Grace is costly and it is not easy to find it. The Old Testament saints plead for it (Gen. 33:10, Exo. 33:13). God has to intentionally set His face to give grace to a soul. All the epistles began with grace and peace because a man is not blessed until God is gracious to him. We do not have hope until God is gracious to us, but we must wait for God to appear to bring that grace. God appeared to all the Old Testament patriarchs in Hebrews 11 in grace. This is not about physical appearance; God came to them in a particular manner. Many of them have been living at that spot and the appearance of God to them in grace was Him revealing a particular way of life that He wanted them to walk into at that time, just like God instructed Noah to build an Ark.
Noah building the ark for 120 years was a salvation out of destruction. If he decided to obey God in another way, he would not be saved from the flood. If Abraham decides to build an ark because he read that Noah built an ark, he will not be saved because the way God will save him will be different from that of Noah. All of them by faith obtained a good report but their faith and grace expressions were different (Heb. 11: 39). Rahab was a prostitute but she was counted among those who had a good report by faith (Heb. 11:31). Rahab’s faith expression was different. The saints in the Old Testament all had unique expressions of how grace appeared to them.
Grace is a unique way that will appear to us on how we should behave. The way that appears is our solution to cracking nature. If we live our Christian life without the intentionality of waiting for grace to appear, we would not grow. We grow in grace. We access grace through faith. Everyone of us will have different scenarios in which God will reveal different things to us that we must carry out. The timeline for salvation differs from individual to individual as seen in Hebrews 11. Grace can be a particular way you are expected to behave over a period of time.
Satan can use things on earth to beset us from things above (Col. 3:2). He can bring warfare around the outward man to remove us from the saving of the soul. God must increase our wisdom of knowing battles to pick and fight. Satan can weary the soul on a particular love walk that we want to engage in and neglect other things the Lord wants us to do for the soul to be saved. Sometimes, walking in the ways the Lord wants us to walk can solve other issues that we might have, even if there is no correlation between them.
God will increase our wisdom on how we war. We must be given skill for spiritual growth so that we can discern distractions and know the actual warfare, way, and instructions that the Lord wants us to partake of.
Blessings!