Today, we will talk about emotional transformation and how we can experience spiritual growth. The most important task we have as human beings is to learn how to love God and our neighbors. There is nothing more important in this world than learning how to love.
We have been studying the people of Israel: the generation that left Egypt, died in the desert, and only two men entered the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb. We have considered that they did not allow God’s power to change their lives and, more specifically, that they did not experience an emotional transformation.
We have already studied the different stages a person can be in emotionally, and today I want to continue with that topic. I want to start with this approach: spiritual maturity and emotional maturity grow together. As I grow spiritually, I should also be growing emotionally. I believe the Spirit who produces spiritual growth is the same Spirit who works emotional transformation.
The spiritual growth of Jesus’ disciples
Let’s study the life of Jesus’ disciples. He was with them for three years, and if we look at their lives, we see that they struggled with their emotional growth. Jesus nicknamed James and John the “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17), and Peter was often impulsive. They did not always know how to express their emotions, despite being close to Jesus.
And I am talking to you, the leader, the father or mother of the family, who goes to church every Saturday, believes in God, and has experienced conversion. You may feel that you are growing spiritually while your emotional life has not yet caught up, since the two go together.
It is a painful contradiction to pray, sing, and praise the name of the Lord on Saturday mornings and then, in the afternoon, use our lips to curse, criticize, and tear down, without knowing how to manage our emotions. The Spirit who helps you have a heart full of love for God is the same Spirit who helps you grow in love for your neighbor: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34, NIV).
The process of the spiritual growth of Jesus’ disciples
Moments before His crucifixion, when Jesus was with His disciples in the garden and He was captured, Peter took his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant (John 18:10). This shows that Peter did not yet know how to manage his strong emotions; he still had growing to do.
Maybe that could be your case and that is your struggle. You are trying, you go to church, you pray, you ask the Lord to help you change because your wife or husband tells you that the way you speak to her or him is hurtful, you do not have a good relationship with your children, and you feel that your family is not healthy because you have not discovered this aspect that is so important in the life of every human being.
Growing spiritually and growing emotionally go hand in hand, and the Bible describes the goal in Ephesians 4:13: “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (NIV).
Paul tells the church in Ephesus that the goal is maturity: “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14, NIV).
Our spiritual growth according to the Bible
That is, there was a stage in your life where you behaved like a child, spiritually and emotionally speaking, but you are expected to mature, to grow, to develop that mind of Christ that leads you to reflect the image of God in your relationships.
The passage goes on to say that we grow by speaking the truth in love: “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Ephesians 4:15, NIV). Here is the word “grow” again. Let us grow spiritually and emotionally, in everything, toward the One who is the head, Christ. In verse 16 we find: “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (NIV). God expects us to grow, to mature. And what does mature mean? Complete, whole, well developed.
In 1 Corinthians 13:11, Paul, speaking about the excellence of love, says: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child” (NIV). He goes on to say that when he became an adult, he put childish ways behind him.
Here is one of the problems we might be having. We are in the church and have been participating in Communion for years, praising the Lord, and going to church with our family. But we continue behaving like children, fighting. We continue with the same unhealthy customs and habits we had when we lived outside God’s Kingdom.
Paul’s message is that there was a time when we were children, but when we meet Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God begins to shape our minds, growth and change are expected: that we grow toward the stature of Jesus and are transformed.
Our spiritual transformation
The transformation that the Spirit comes to do in your mind is spiritual and emotional. He renews it, helps you think, and shapes your mind to be like the mind of Jesus Christ. Where the Spirit of God is at work, hatred, resentment, and the negative emotions that lead us to sin and to hurt the people beside us begin, little by little, to lose their grip. Feeling anger or sadness is not a sign that the Spirit is absent: emotions are part of how God made us. The question is what we do with them.
Galatians 5:22-23 tells us about the fruit of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (NIV). That is, the self-control we need to reflect the emotional intelligence God has given us is part of the fruit of the Spirit.
If you are struggling in your life with a mind that has not been transformed, with emotions that you have not been able to control, or if you feel that you do not have healthy relationships with your husband or wife, your children, or your community, it is time for you to stop and ask the Lord: Transform me, transform my mind. I want to have self-control.
It is time for you to invite Him to come and do special work in your heart. Ask for help from people too: a trusted pastor or counselor can walk with you. And if anger in your home has become hurtful or frightening, emotional growth is not a substitute for safety. Please seek professional help, and if someone is in danger, the resources below are for you.
What would it look like this week to let the Spirit lead you in how you speak to the people you love? May God bless you. May these lines help you grow and begin to reach maturity in Jesus Christ.
Would you like to talk with a professional? Call (407) 559-7093 (Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern) or find professional help here. For general questions that are not an emergency, write to drduany@zodugroup.com. Please do not send health information by email.
If there is violence in your home
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. These lines are free and confidential.
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Available 24/7.
- If you are thinking of harming yourself: call or text 988 (press 2 for Spanish).
This article is for education only. It does not offer diagnosis or personal advice, does not replace evaluation or treatment by a health professional, and reading it or writing to us through this site does not create a therapeutic or pastoral counseling relationship. This site is not an emergency service and is not monitored continuously: do not send health information through comments or public forms. The author is a licensed psychotherapist and pastor, and is part of ZODU.
Sources
- John 13:34, Ephesians 4:13-16, 1 Corinthians 13:11, and Galatians 5:22-23, New International Version (BibleGateway).
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