A discerning approach to spiritual formation
This is the final article in a series discussing spiritual formation. You can find the previous articles here: An Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
This will be the last article in my spiritual formation series, and I hope to summarize some things that will help all Christians who care deeply about spiritual growth.
So sorry it has taken so long. There is so much good happening in our local church, I just have not had a lot of time to write.
I’m grateful for all the feedback I’ve received.
Many people have called or emailed me. The majority have expressed gratitude for a church leader willing to wade into the topic of spiritual formation. There are others who would prefer I leave the topic alone so as not to stifle spiritual creativity and what they would say is much needed innovation.
I have friends in both categories – I appreciate and respect all of them.
Here is what has become clear to me: Spiritual formation may seem simple and straightforward, but it quickly becomes a kind of “choose your own adventure,” shaped strongly by our foundational beliefs, view of biblical authority, temperament, and experiences.
Since so much modern day spiritual formation often borrows ideas from non-Christian sources, the deeper we explore it, especially as a diverse group, the more the goalposts seem to move around. It reminds us that the goal is not to prescribe a one-size-fits-all set of practices, but to remain faithful to Scripture as we pursue transformation into the likeness of Christ.
In other words, the Biblically Resilient Christian will thoughtfully discern what they are doing and why, shining the light of Scripture on all the ambitions, ideas and practices that form one’s view of healthy spiritual formation.
God’s Word is the Guide
Over the course of this series, I have tried to approach the subject of spiritual formation with both openness and discernment. I understand why the movement appeals to so many sincere Christians. Many believers feel hurried, distracted, spiritually dry, or frustrated by a version of church life that can seem heavy on activity but light on genuine transformation.
They want to know God more deeply.
They want prayer to become more meaningful, Scripture to shape more than their opinions, and their lives to look increasingly like Jesus.
Those are good desires.
The question has never been whether Christians should grow spiritually. The New Testament assumes that we will. The real questions are how that growth occurs, who produces it, and what authority determines the path.
A practice is not necessarily Christian because it uses Christian language, creates a peaceful feeling, or appears in a book with the words spiritual formation in the title. Every teaching and practice must be examined in the light of Scripture.
As I bring this series to a close, three convictions stand out.
We must be discerning about what carries the label of spiritual formation.
We must describe and pursue transformation in Biblical terms, recognizing the Holy Spirit as the transforming agent.
And we must remember that spiritual formation is not unique to Christianity; other religions also use practices intended to shape the inner life. An exercise may feel helpful and still move us away from the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
A Christian Label Does Not Make a Practice Biblical
The phrase “spiritual formation” is broad enough to describe very different ideas.
One teacher may use it as a modern name for sanctification: the lifelong work of God by which believers become more like Christ (Gal. 2:20, 2 Cor. 3:18). Another may use it for a collection of contemplative exercises drawn from monastic traditions. Still another may combine biblical language with ideas borrowed from Eastern religion, psychology, or modern mysticism.
Those approaches should not be treated as though they are the same.
Discernment does not require suspicion toward everything unfamiliar, nor does it mean that a practice must appear in the Bible in precisely its modern form before it can be useful. Christians have always applied biblical wisdom to circumstances the biblical writers did not address directly. But when someone presents a practice as a pathway to intimacy with God or spiritual transformation, we have every right—and a responsibility—to ask careful questions.
What does this practice assume about God, human nature, sin, salvation, and the self?
Where did it come from?
What is it designed to accomplish?
Does it direct us toward the God who has revealed Himself in Christ and Scripture, or toward an undefined divine presence?
Does it teach us to receive and obey God’s revealed Word, or to search within ourselves for a private word that carries equal authority?
Does it deepen our dependence on Christ, or make us dependent on a technique, retreat leader, spiritual director, guru, priest, or supposed spiritual expert?
Most importantly, is it presented in the New Testament as a means by which Christians are transformed?
The Bereans were commended because they examined the Scriptures to determine whether Paul’s teaching was true (Acts 17:11). John warned believers not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits (1 John 4:1). Paul instructed Christians to test everything and hold fast to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
Discernment is not spiritual narrowness. It is an expression of faithfulness.
Let the Bible Supply Our Vocabulary
One safeguard is to use Bible words wherever we can.
Spiritual formation can be a useful umbrella term, but it is not the New Testament’s primary language for Christian growth. Scripture speaks of sanctification, renewal, maturity, discipleship, obedience, abiding in Christ, walking by the Spirit, putting off the old self, putting on the new self, bearing fruit, and being transformed into the image of Christ.
These words do more than give us labels. Together they tell us what spiritual growth actually is. It is not simply becoming calmer, more self-aware, emotionally centered, or sensitive to spiritual experience. Those things may sometimes accompany growth, but they are not its definition.
Biblical transformation means that our minds are being renewed. Here is what Paul says:
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
(Romans 12:2)
It also means our desires are reordered, sin is put to death, love increases, obedience deepens, and the character of Jesus becomes more visible in our lives.
The alternative to the works of the flesh is not mastery of a contemplative method; it is walking by the Spirit. The evidence of that life is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Likewise, Colossians 3 describes growth through putting sinful practices to death, putting on the character of Christ, letting His peace rule, letting His Word dwell richly among us, worshiping, teaching, forgiving, and loving one another.
This is thoroughly spiritual, but it is also concrete, moral, relational, and centered on Christ.
A spirituality that produces unusual experiences but does not produce holiness, truth, love, humility, and obedience is not the maturity the New Testament describes.
The Holy Spirit Is the Transforming Agent
This may be the most important conviction of all: Christians do not transform themselves. Neither do other people possess the power to transform us spiritually. Teachers, pastors, counselors, and mature believers can help us understand Scripture, encourage obedience, expose blind spots, and walk beside us.
They are gifts to the church. But they are not the source of transformation.
Paul writes that we are being transformed into Christ’s image with ever-increasing glory, and that this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Transformation is God’s work before it is our technique. The Spirit gives life, dwells within believers, illuminates truth, convicts us of sin, empowers obedience, produces His fruit, and conforms us to the likeness of Christ.
That does not make us passive.
The New Testament repeatedly calls believers to make every effort to be godly (2 Peter 1:5-8). Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. Our participation matters, but our practices are responses to God’s grace and avenues of obedience—not mechanisms that place God under our control.
This distinction protects us from a subtle form of spiritual legalism.
A person can begin to believe that those who master certain disciplines are deeper Christians, while ordinary believers who pray, study Scripture, worship, serve, repent, share their faith, and remain active in the church are spiritually shallow.
The New Testament does not create a contemplative elite. Every Christian has access to the Father through Christ and shares in the indwelling Spirit.
No spiritual guru, Catholic priest, mystic, or specially trained director stands between a believer and God.
Christ alone is our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5).
Not Every Spiritual Practice Leads to the Same God
We must also remember that spiritual formation is not exclusively Christian.
Buddhists, Hindus, New Age practitioners, and adherents of other spiritual traditions use meditation, silence, breath control, repetition, visualization, detachment, and other disciplines to shape consciousness and the inner life. Many of these practices can produce real psychological or physical effects, something a lot of Christians don’t realize.
Slower breathing may reduce anxiety. Silence may lower stress. Repetition may focus attention. A person may feel peaceful, centered, or even spiritually awakened.
But feeling an effect does not tell us what the practice means, where it leads, or whether its underlying vision of God and the self is true.
Spiritual experiences are not self-authenticating.
Peace is not proof. Intensity is not proof. A sense of transcendence is not proof.
Scripture, not experience, must interpret the experience.
This does not mean every act of silence, controlled breathing, or physical stillness is sinful. Human beings breathe, rest, and become quiet. The concern is not the mere physical action; it is the spiritual framework, purpose, and promise attached to it.
Biblical meditation fills the mind with God’s Word and reflects on His works (Psalm 1:2; Psalm 119:15).
Some Eastern forms of meditation aim instead at emptying the mind, detaching from ordinary thought, dissolving the distinction between the self and ultimate reality, or awakening an inner divinity. Those are not neutral variations of the same practice. They arise from different beliefs about God, humanity, and salvation.
Christians should therefore resist the habit of borrowing a practice, adding the name of Jesus, and assuming it has become Christian.
Sometimes the form and the worldview can be separated, sometimes they cannot. The burden is on teachers to explain the difference clearly and ground what they commend in Scripture.
Sincere Christians should never be shamed as resistant to depth merely because they ask where a practice came from or whether the apostles taught it.
The Ordinary Biblical Path Is Not Spiritually Inferior
One reason new practices gain influence is that the ordinary life of discipleship can feel unimpressive.
Reading Scripture, praying with understanding, worshiping with the church, confessing sin, receiving correction, serving people, sharing the gospel, enduring hardship, forgiving enemies, caring for the vulnerable, and obeying when obedience is costly do not always create dramatic experiences. Yet these are exactly the places where the Spirit forms Christ in us.
Jesus calls us to abide in Him and His words to abide in us (John 15:4–10).
Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16), and to walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16).
The church is described as a body in which every member contributes to the maturity of the whole (Ephesians 4:11–16).
The biblical path is not merely private or inward. It is rooted in truth, embodied in obedience, and practiced in a community of believers.
There is nothing shallow about this life. The Christian life may be ordinary, but it is supernatural.
The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in believers (Romans 8:11). He is able to use a familiar passage, an honest confession, a difficult act of forgiveness, a quiet prayer, a loving correction, or years of faithful service to accomplish changes no human method can manufacture.
A Simple Test for Spiritual Formation
As we evaluate a book, teacher, retreat, or practice, several questions can keep us anchored:
Is it clearly grounded in Scripture, understood in context?
Does it make Jesus Christ more central or subtly move attention toward the self, the experience, or the guide?
Does it treat the Holy Spirit as the transforming agent, or imply that transformation is produced by mastering a technique?
Does its view of meditation align with biblical meditation on God’s Word?
Does it strengthen life in the local church or encourage an individualistic search for private revelation?
Does it lead toward repentance, holiness, love, truth, obedience, and the fruit of the Spirit?
Does it preserve Christ as the one mediator between God and humanity?
No single question replaces wisdom, and not every questionable practice is equally dangerous. But these questions can help us distinguish biblical discipleship from spirituality that merely borrows Christian language.
Christ Is Both the Source and the Goal
My concern throughout this series has not been to discourage Christians from seeking greater depth.
Quite the opposite.
The church desperately needs believers whose inner lives are being renewed, whose loves are being reordered, and whose public lives display the character of Jesus. We should pray more deeply, meditate on Scripture more carefully, repent more honestly, worship more fully, and depend on the Spirit more consciously.
But we do not need to look beyond Christ in order to go deeper with Christ.
We do not need to treat spiritual techniques from other religions as missing keys to Christian maturity.
We do not need a spiritual class of experts to give us access to what God has withheld from ordinary believers.
God has given us His Son, His Word, His Spirit, and His people.
So let us pursue transformation with humility and expectation. Let us welcome practices that genuinely help us attend to Scripture, pray faithfully, obey Jesus, and walk by the Spirit. Let us also test every claim, refuse vague spirituality, and reject anything that moves the source of transformation away from God.
True Christian formation is not the discovery of the divine within us. It is the gracious work of the Holy Spirit conforming us to the image of the Son, through the truth God has revealed, within the life of His people, for the glory of the Father.
That is more than a technique. It is the life of discipleship—and it is deep enough.
Daren Overstreet
Daren is a Senior Leader at Anchor Point Church in Tampa, Florida. He has been in ministry for nearly 30 years, and holds a Master’s Degree in Missional Theology.
You can contact him at
