By Duke Taber
There is a particular kind of restlessness that visits a believer who has walked with God for a while. You know the gospel. You can explain that salvation comes by grace and not by works. You have sung the songs, heard the sermons, and maybe even taught a class or two. And yet something in you keeps whispering that there must be more. Not more activity. More depth.
If that whisper is familiar, you are not backsliding. You are growing. The hunger you feel is itself a gift, and it deserves a real answer rather than a pat on the head.
This article is for the believer who is ready to move past the front porch of grace and walk into the rest of the house. We are going to look at what grace actually is in the original language, why so many sincere Christians stall after the basics, and what it looks like to keep growing without sliding back into the exhausting work of trying to earn what was always free.
When “Saved by Grace” Stops Feeling Like Enough
Let me say something plainly that took me years of ministry to learn. Most believers do not stall because they lack desire. They stall because no one ever showed them that grace was meant to be a lifelong journey and not a one-time transaction.
The numbers bear this out. Research from Barna found that two in five Christians are not engaged in any form of discipleship at all, and a majority describe their spiritual life as entirely private. We have made faith a personal possession rather than a growing relationship, and a possession that is never used tends to gather dust.
The writer of Hebrews described this exact problem with a striking image.
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.” — Hebrews 5:12 (NKJV)
Milk is not the enemy. Milk is where everyone begins, and there is no shame in it. The problem is staying on milk for years when God designed you for solid food. The hunger you feel for something deeper is the appetite of a soul that is ready to grow up. Far from being a sign that something is wrong with you, it is one of the clearest signs that something is right.
Grace Is Bigger Than the Front Door
Here is where many of us need our understanding stretched. We learned grace as the way in. We were taught, correctly, that we cannot save ourselves and that God’s favor is unearned. But if grace is only the front door, we will treat it like a memory, something that happened to us once at the beginning.
The New Testament tells a far larger story. The Greek word translated grace is charis, and a careful word study reveals it carries the sense of both a gift and an active, empowering favor. Grace is not only the pardon God extends to a guilty sinner. It is the ongoing operation of God in the heart of a believer, the holy influence that strengthens and grows him in the faith.
John saw this clearly when he described what we receive from Christ.
“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” — John 1:16 (NKJV)
Grace for grace. Grace upon grace. The picture is of a supply that never runs dry, one wave of grace arriving on the heels of the last. If you have been treating grace as a single deposit made years ago, no wonder your faith feels thin. You were meant to live in a steady current of it. Understanding the different dimensions of grace described throughout Scripture is often the first thing that reopens a stalled walk.
Paul makes the point even sharper in his letter to Titus.
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,” — Titus 2:11-12 (NKJV)
Grace teaches. Did you catch that? The same grace that saves also instructs, training us to say no to what destroys us and yes to a life that honors God. GotQuestions notes that charis runs through the New Testament as both God’s saving gift and the ongoing favor that enriches the believer’s life. Grace is not a passive thing you received and filed away. It is an active teacher that intends to shape every day you have left.
Grace That Pardons and Grace That Empowers
Paul gives us the clearest example of grace as power in his own testimony.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” — 1 Corinthians 15:10 (NKJV)
Notice the movement in that verse. Grace made him what he was, then grace worked through him, and the labor he poured out was not really his own effort but grace at work in him. That is the deeper grace so many believers never discover. It does not merely forgive your past. It supplies the strength for your present.
The relationship between grace and the mercy of God helps clarify this. Mercy withholds the punishment we deserve. Grace gives us the help and favor we never could have earned. Both flow from the same heart of God, and both are meant to keep flowing long after the day you were saved.
Growing Up Without Trying to Earn Up
Now we reach the most dangerous turn on this road, and I want to slow down here.
When sincere believers hear a call to go deeper, their first instinct is often to try harder. They make rules. They build schedules. They measure themselves against others. And within a few months they are exhausted, because they have quietly swapped the gospel of grace for a program of self-improvement. The hunger to grow got hijacked by the old habit of performance.
Scripture refuses to let us do this. The same grace that saved you is the grace that grows you.
“but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.” — 2 Peter 3:18 (NKJV)
Peter does not say work your way into maturity. He says grow in grace. As GotQuestions explains, becoming more like Christ is itself sustained by grace alone, not by our striving. We are justified by grace, sanctified by grace, and one day glorified by grace.
Does that mean we sit back and do nothing? Not at all. Paul holds two truths together that we are forever tempted to separate.
“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” — Philippians 2:12-13 (NKJV)
We work. We also recognize that the working is God working in us. The C.S. Lewis Institute puts it well, noting that our transformation is ultimately God’s doing, accomplished through a process in which we still play an active and indispensable part. You are not the source of your own growth. You are a participant in it. That single shift can free you from years of frustration. If the difference between earning and receiving still feels blurry, it is worth working through what sanctification really means and how growth happens without earning, along with the older question of grace versus works.
The Means God Uses to Grow You
If grace does the growing, our part is to keep putting ourselves in the places where grace flows. Theologians have long called these the means of grace. They are not magic, and they earn nothing. They are simply the ordinary channels God has promised to use, the warmth and water and sunlight that a living thing needs in order to grow.
The Word as More Than Information
Solid food, in the language of Hebrews, comes through Scripture that is not merely read but digested.
“But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” — Hebrews 5:14 (NKJV)
The phrase that matters there is by reason of use. Maturity comes from exercise, from returning to the Word again and again until your spiritual senses sharpen. Information alone will not do it. A person can know a great deal about the Bible and remain a spiritual infant. This is why growth through grace is described as a lifelong journey rather than a destination you arrive at once and never revisit.
Prayer as the Place Grace Is Found
When we pray, we are not informing God of news He lacks. We are coming to a specific place He has appointed for a specific purpose.
“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” — Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV)
It is called the throne of grace for a reason. Grace is what you find there. Boldness is the posture you are invited to take. A believer who genuinely wants to go deeper will not neglect the very throne where the supply is handed out.
The Community You Cannot Skip
Remember that Barna finding, that so many believers keep their faith entirely private. Scripture knows nothing of solitary maturity. We are grown in the soil of relationships, sharpened and corrected and encouraged by others who are also pressing in. Grace was always meant to be experienced within a community of believers, not hoarded alone in a corner. If your walk has plateaued, the missing ingredient may not be more private effort. It may be other people.
Grace in the Place You Would Least Expect It
There is one more frontier of grace, and it is the one we resist most. We expect to meet grace in worship and in answered prayer. We do not expect to meet it in weakness and suffering. Yet that is precisely where Paul found grace at its deepest.
“And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.'” — 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NKJV)
Paul had begged God three times to remove a tormenting thorn. God did not remove it. Instead God promised that His grace would be enough, and that divine strength would actually be displayed through human weakness. Some of the most mature believers I have known did not grow in seasons of ease. They grew when life fell apart and grace met them in the rubble. The connection between grace and suffering is not a detour from spiritual growth. For many of us it turns out to be the main road.
What Deeper Grace Actually Looks Like
So how do you know if you are actually growing in grace and not just collecting more information?
The old pastor J.C. Ryle offered a wise answer that still holds. One of the surest signs of real growth, he observed, is a rising concern for the souls of others rather than a private fixation on your own spiritual feelings. Grace turns us outward. The believer who is genuinely maturing becomes more humble, not more impressive, and more tender toward people who are still struggling to find their footing.
Barna’s research points in the same direction, observing that the true endpoint of spiritual development is godly character rather than religious accomplishment. And here is a freeing word from another corner. The team at Desiring God reminds us that growth itself is not finally the goal, Christ is. We do not pursue maturity for its own sake. We pursue Jesus, and maturity is simply what happens to us along the way.
That is the heart of it. Going deeper in grace is not about becoming a more accomplished Christian. It is about becoming a person increasingly shaped by the One who is grace itself. The deeper you go, the less you will boast about your progress and the more you will marvel at His kindness. This is the lifelong transformation you were actually made for.
A Place to Begin
You do not need a complicated program. You need to put yourself back in the current of grace and stay there. If you are ready to move past the basics, start simply:
- Return to Scripture not to gather facts but to meet God, reading slowly enough to be changed by what you read.
- Come to the throne of grace daily, asking for the help you genuinely need rather than performing prayers you think you should pray.
- Stop hiding your faith. Find one or two believers who will walk with you and tell you the truth.
- When weakness comes, look for grace inside it instead of only asking God to remove it.
If you want a structured path through these themes, a guided study can give your hunger a shape and a schedule. Our thirteen-lesson Bible study on grace was built for exactly this season, for the believer who senses there is more and wants to go and find it.
The front door of grace was never meant to be the whole house. Walk on in. There are rooms in here you have not seen yet.
Resources
- What Does It Mean to Grow in Grace? (GotQuestions.org)
- Are You Growing in Grace? (C.S. Lewis Institute)
- Grace (Charis): A Greek Word Study (Precept Austin)
- Growth Is Not the Goal (Desiring God)
- Christians and Discipleship Community (Barna Group)
- 6 Marks of the Believer’s Growth in Grace (Monergism)
Keep growing, friend. The grace that saved you is more than able to carry you the rest of the way.
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