Love is the evidence of spiritual growth. Whatever influence we hope for, love is the bullseye. It’s the fruit of discipleship. Jesus teaches us this when he says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Love is the goal.

When recently processing with a friend in a large ministry about his boss's moral failure. I was surprised to hear his colleagues weren’t surprised by it. That is because despite the intelligence of this leader, he wasn’t known for how well he loved others. He wasn’t known for love, joy, peace, forbearance, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He had major influence, but loving well wasn’t near the top of the list of the descriptors of his gifts and influence.

Now, if you’re tracking with me, this leads us to the critically important second question.

How do we grow or mature spiritually?

If love is the outcome of spiritual growth, how do we really grow in our love of God and others? I really want to love people well. I try really hard, but the results are mixed most days.

I believe Christianity provides the only answer to this. But unfortunately, as a Christian, I have missed it most of my Christian life. It’s been easy for me to get my head around the fact that Jesus took care of my salvation, making me right in relationship with God. However, I have often missed that in his extravagant grace, Jesus also took care of my sanctification, providing the source of my maturing into Christlikeness.

Instead, I thought that was all on me.

Jesus knew that we couldn't produce love on our own through our own trying or striving. That's why he gave us new hearts, imparted with the holy spirit. But a lot of the churches I have gone to gave me the illusion that I needed to know more, do more, and sin less to grow closer to a perfectly close God.

As a result, I missed the fullness of what Jesus made possible. I missed that he really gave me a new heart, made me a new creation, and gave me the Holy Spirit as the source of love – fully available to me now like a spring of living water living inside me.

That changes how you and I grow. It means that we grow more by trusting and receiving what he has already given us access to, which is pretty different from us trying to earn it. Jesus summed up how we grow in John Chapter 15. He pretty much laid it out in one word – abide.

As we abide, he will be the source of love.

As leaders, we get to remind each other that the way we grow is by abiding, and not striving. This is the subtle but significant shift of how we think about the source of how we grow – our source is either ourselves or the Holy Spirit. As we rely on that source, we will love each other.

Growth happens from the inside out, not the outside in.

We must remind each other of this: Growth happens from the inside out, not the outside in.

And we have new insides. As we abide, we end up loving more and sinning less.

• Not by focusing on sinning less and loving more through my own effort.
• Not by relying on my efforts to clean up my outside to feel better about my inside.

In Romans, Paul focused on what Jesus did, and what he changed in us. And then, after 11 chapters of teaching on our new identity as righteous, adopted saints, Paul finally pivoted in chapter 12 to therefore, now act accordingly. He knew that growth happens from the inside out, so he focused on that for 11 chapters before getting into any actions. Because he knows that when we get the source right, the symptoms take care of themselves.

###

Robby Angle is the President of Trueface, whose vision is to catalyze a movement of grace. He lives in Dawsonville Georgia with his wife Emily and their eight children. Prior to serving at Trueface, Robby worked in international disaster response, as a Licensed Professional Counselor, and as the Director of Adult Ministry at North Point Community Church.

Learn more about Outcomes magazine.