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You can water a tomato plant every morning for a week, crouch down on day eight, and swear nothing has changed. Same leaves. Same height. Then you come back from a long weekend away and there are flowers on it. It was growing the whole time. You just couldn’t watch it happen.
That is usually the feeling behind a search for “spiritual growth.” Not a theology question. A quieter one: I’ve been trying. Why do I feel exactly the same? Maybe you said yes to Jesus recently, or came back after years away, and expected to feel different by now. Here is the good news this post is going to show you: the Bible describes spiritual growth almost exactly like that tomato plant. Mostly hidden. Slow. In stages. And not something you have to force.
What Spiritual Growth Actually Is
Spiritual growth is simply getting to know Jesus better over time, and slowly becoming more like Him because of it. It is not collecting Bible facts or earning a spiritual report card. It is closer to a friendship that deepens: the more time you spend with someone, the more their way of seeing things rubs off on you.
Peter, who walked with Jesus every day, put it in one line:
“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18, KJV)
Not “grow in effort.” Grow in grace, and in knowing a Person.
The Parable Almost Nobody Talks About
Jesus told a very short story about growth that shows up in only one Gospel, Mark. It is easy to read right past, because it sits next to more famous parables about seeds. Here it is in full:
“So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” (Mark 4:26-28, KJV)
Read what the farmer does. He plants. He sleeps. He gets up. He isn’t pulling on the stalk or digging it up to check the roots. He doesn’t even understand how it works: “he knoweth not how.” It grows anyway.
The Gold Nugget Hiding in One Greek Word
That phrase “the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself” has a surprise in it. The Greek word Mark used for “of herself” is automatē, a form of automatos, the Greek word English “automatic” comes from. The only other place it appears in the New Testament is Acts 12:10, when an iron prison gate swings open for Peter. The King James translates it there as “which opened to them of his own accord.”
So the picture Jesus paints is this: once the seed is in good soil, growth happens of its own accord, the same way a locked gate opened for Peter without anyone pushing it. You are not the engine of your own spiritual growth. Paul said the same thing to a church in Corinth:
“I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” (1 Corinthians 3:6, KJV)
That takes a huge weight off. Your job is not to manufacture growth. Your job is to stay planted.
Why You Can’t See Yourself Growing
Look again at the order Jesus gives: “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” A blade of grain is just a green shoot that looks like every weed in the field. Nobody walks past it and says, “Look at all that bread.” But the bread is on its way.
A lot of people quit in the blade stage because it doesn’t look like much. Here is what the blade stage often looks like in real life:
- You still get irritated in traffic, but you notice it now, and sometimes you let it go faster.
- You don’t understand much of the Bible yet, but a verse from last week pops into your head at the right moment.
- Your prayers feel clumsy, but you find yourself talking to God in the car without planning to.
- You feel a small tug to be kinder to one hard person, and that tug is new.
None of those feel like “spiritual growth” from the inside. They are exactly what it looks like.
What “Staying Planted” Looks Like on a Tuesday
If growth is not something you force, what do you actually do? Jesus answered that too, on the night before He died:
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” (John 15:4, KJV)
“Abide” is an old word for stay. Remain. Keep living there. A branch does not strain to make grapes. It just stays connected, and the fruit comes. When Paul later listed that fruit, he called it “the fruit of the Spirit,” singular. We wrote about why Paul wrote “fruit,” not “fruits”, and it is the same idea: one life that grows, not nine chores to check off.
In an ordinary week, staying planted can be as small as this:
- A few minutes with Jesus most mornings. Read one short passage from the Gospels about what He said or did. Not a whole book. One scene.
- One honest sentence back. Tell God what stood out, or what confused you. That is prayer. It counts.
- Carry one thing into your day. One line, one picture of Jesus, one question. Let it ride along with you to work or school.
That’s it. The seed is in the ground. If you want a bit more help with the reading part, our guide on how to study the Bible for beginners keeps it simple, and how to build a relationship with God talks about the friendship side of it.
What Changes When You Stop Measuring Every Morning
Here is the “after” most people are really hoping for. You stop waking up and asking, “Am I a better Christian yet?” You wake up and ask, “What did Jesus do today in the story?” The pressure drains out. Your Bible stops feeling like a test you are failing and starts feeling like time with Someone you are getting to know.
And then one day, maybe months from now, something hard happens, and you respond with a calm you didn’t have before. You’ll realize the grain was filling out the whole time.
A Simple Path to Stay Planted
The hard part usually isn’t wanting to grow. It’s knowing where to start tomorrow morning, with something small enough to keep doing. That is exactly why we made 30 Days Walking with Jesus. It walks you through the life of Jesus one day at a time, a beginner-friendly reading plan through the Gospels that takes under 10 minutes a day.
Each day comes with a short devotional video (under 60 seconds), a full-chapter audio reading if you’d rather listen, and a PDF study guide with journal prompts. There are also 5 quick-reference scripture guides. You just show up, and the seed goes in the ground.
And it is completely free. No card, no upsell, no expiration. It’s yours forever, on any device. The words of Jesus should not sit behind a paywall.
Questions People Are Asking
Q: What is spiritual growth in simple terms?
A: Spiritual growth is getting to know Jesus better over time and slowly becoming more like Him as a result. It works more like a deepening friendship than a checklist.
Q: Why don’t I feel like I’m growing spiritually?
A: Most spiritual growth is hard to see from the inside. In Mark 4:26-28, Jesus compares it to a seed that grows while the farmer sleeps, in stages: “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” Early growth looks small, like noticing your anger sooner.
Q: What does the Bible say about how to grow spiritually?
A: The Bible points more to staying connected than to trying harder. Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me” (John 15:4, KJV). Paul wrote that people plant and water, “but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6, KJV).
Q: How can a new Christian start growing spiritually?
A: Start small and daily: read one short scene from the Gospels, say one honest sentence to God about it, and carry one thought into your day. 30 Days Walking with Jesus is a free, beginner-friendly plan through the life of Jesus that takes under 10 minutes a day.
Q: How long does spiritual growth take?
A: There is no set timeline. Peter wrote “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18, KJV) to people already following Jesus, so growth keeps going rather than finishing on a certain date.
