Sanctification is the Bible word for how Christians grow.
Sanctification is the lifelong work God does in you to change you at the heart level—where your thoughts, affections, and motivations lie.
His Spirit works in you to change how you think, what you love, what attracts you, what repulses you, and how you perceive the world. Those inward changes then produce new behaviors, because God is not simply trying to change your outward patterns. He is changing the kind of person you are within.
And this is a process God works in the life of a Christian. Your continuing faith receives God’s daily grace at the root level of life.
Sometimes the steps are so small that you can barely feel them.
Sometimes you may even feel like you're moving backward. But God stays with you, working in you and moving you forward with Him. He promised to never leave you nor forsake you. Proverbs 24:16 says, “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.” The Christian life is not a life without stumbling. It is a life in which God keeps bringing you forward.
Sometimes the steps are much bigger. There are seasons when spiritual growth seems accelerated—when you have what you might call an experience, a rush of progress that feels miraculous.
And then you return to the small steps: Faith. Reliance. Prayer. Scripture. Repentance. Worship. Serving. Forgiving. Showing up. Trusting God when nothing feels spectacular.
Paul wrote that “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). And as you behold Christ, you are being “transformed into the same image from glory to glory” by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).
You never reach perfection in this life.
But, by God’s grace, you keep going, because there are no perfect Christians. There are only growing Christians.