Have you ever noticed that some people sit in church their entire life and never seem to grow? They got saved a decade or two ago and they’re still in the same condition that they were a year after accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Or maybe you look across the youth room at that kid whose parents are Christian, he’s grown up in a Christian house, but he’s the same little saved heathen in 11th grade that he was in 5th grade?

We’ll there’s reasons for that. Of course each individual is different, and there can be more than one reason for the lack of growth in people’s life, but I want to look at one specific reason.

The reason people, including kids and youth, don’t move beyond where they are is because they’re not taught to. Oh yes, they’re taught. They might be taught the Word in a good Word church, but they’re not taught to move past where they are. They’re not taught to desire God more than they do today, or yesterday. They either think it’s alright to stay where they are or haven’t been given the knowledge or gotten the revelation that they need to move on.They don’t know what’s involved, or where they should be. So they just stay where they are.

If you don’t know there’s a difference between white and blue, you’ll always call it white even if it’s blue (that actually happens in life). If you don’t know that their is more out there, that you should be striving and contending for more, you’ll stay where you are. The sports team that has always lost, has never known what it is like to win, has always been told they can’t win, has never been told that they can do it and that there is more to their team than losing – they’ll stay exactly where they are.

And here’s something else. Just changing someone’s actions won’t change their heart. You may think that if you can change someone’s actions – to get them to go after God, that you’ve done it. You may think that you’ve succeeded and they’re on the right track. However, just changing their actions won’t work. Eventually they’ll just go back to doing the original thing, getting in the rut, standing still, not growing. When you’re not there looking over their shoulder or pushing them, they’ll stop moving. There has to be a heart change and that can only be done by God. You have to get the Holy Spirit involved or else all your words and all your work is just words and useless, futile energy expended. Eventually it will be burned up and wasted.

As you’re standing there, telling them, helping them to see that there is more, you have to understand that one, you can’t do it without God. You have to get His plan, His anointing for that circumstance. Without the anointing, it’s just words. It’s the anointing that touches hearts and causes change.

And the second thing, you have to make sure that people understand that you’re not berating them, talking down to them, or cutting them down. They have to understand that you are trying to bring them to a place where they can grow, where they can touch God, where they can fulfill that which God created them to do.

Sometimes people don’t know that there’s more than what they have. That’s when someone needs to step in and show them that there’s a whole lot more than they’ve ever thought.