How to Guide and Accelerate Your Spiritual Growth

May 22, 2018

ACHIEVE YOUR GOD-GIVEN POTENTIAL BY RENEWING YOUR MIND Because we are transformed by what we let into our minds (Romans 12:2), our Christian life is won or lost by what we put into our minds (actively) or let into our minds (passively). But, as we saw last week, if something is important, it isn't enough to just hear it once and expect it to change us, to renew our minds and transform us. We must write it down and repeat it until it changes us. How repetition works in the brain.

Memory

We've talked before here on the blog about how repetition creates deep pathways in the brain that make it easier for us to retrieve what has been repeated. There are 100,000 miles of neurological pathways in the brain. Every time we think a thought, that thought takes the same pathway in the brain. So, as we reinforce a thought over and over, it deepens that pathway, changing it over time from a path, to a sidewalk, to a road, to a four-lane superhighway. If we reinforce something often enough, it is very easy for us to remember it because the neurological pathway is so deep. Repetition is the key to mental ownership!

Awareness

As we deepen a neurological pathway, it crosses other pathways, similar to how a new highway crosses existing highways. This enables the brain to access already existing pathways more effectively, so that information in one part of the brain is now better connected to information in another part of the brain. This enables us to become more aware. We see things we didn’t see before. We can connect dots we didn’t connect before. It enables us to appreciate things and grasp their significance more completely than before. We can get our minds around things we couldn’t before. It makes us smarter!

Feeding the Subconscious

Then, this new memory and awareness sinks deeply into the subconscious. This is where our true attitudes, values and behavior reside. By actively working on strengthening our memory and increasing our awareness through repetition, the subconscious if fed, and over time, it transforms our attitudes, values and behavior!

Subconscious Feeding Us

The vast majority of mental activity (90-95%) goes on in the subconscious, which is active 24 hours a day. Even the thoughts that we think on a conscious level are often prompted by subconscious activity. So, the subconscious receives the information we reinforce over and over, changing our fundamental attitudes, values and behavior. Then, those new attitudes, values and behavior feed our conscious, resulting in transformation. We feed our subconscious and then our subconscious feeds us!

If we understand this amazing process, we can guide and accelerate our spiritual growth in truly impressive ways by feeding our brains the right input and starving the wrong input.

Research Supports Memorizing and Meditating on Scripture Dr. Daniel Amen is a psychiatrist specializing in understanding how the brain works and how to improve our lives by cooperating with how the brain works. He has done more brain images than any other medical doctor, over 100,000. His research has convinced him that there are specific things we can do to improve the functioning of our brain and improve our lives. In his book, Stones of Remembrance, Dr. Amen makes the surprising assertion that memorizing Scripture is one of the most powerful things we can do to develop neurological functioning and improve our lives. It is surprising to me, not because I didn’t think it was true, but because the information came from a medical researcher and not a Bible teacher. So, as we consider the four things that repetition does for the brain, ie (1) strengthens memory, (2) increases awareness, (3) feeds the subconscious so that (4) the subconscious then feeds us, it is important to understand that

both the Bible and medical research tell us that memorizing and meditating on Scripture and biblical truth is the single most important thing Christians can do to guide and accelerate their spiritual growth and achieve their God-given potential.

Conclusion Of course, all truth is God’s truth whether or not it is in the Bible, so it isn’t just Scripture that will help us. All positive input is helpful and all negative input is harmful. So, in addition to memorizing and meditating on Scripture, we can read good books, listen to good music, cultivate positive hobbies, spend time in nature, cultivate good friendships, attend church faithfully, etc., etc. But even within these general activities, if something is very important, if you want to guide and accelerate your spiritual growth, you need to repeat truth until it changes you. Doing so will strengthen your memory, give you greater awareness, and feed your subconscious, allowing your subconscious to then feed you transformed attitudes, values and behavior!

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