12 Daily Habits to 10x Your Spiritual Health

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That's coldture.com, C-O-L-D-T-U-R-E.com. And don't forget to use the code Axe to save $200 today. Everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe. And each and every week on this show, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level.

On today's episode, I'm going to be sharing my 12 Habits for Spiritual Growth. And if you're a person saying, I wanna experience a breakthrough in my life, I wanna have more in my life, you maybe feel a little bit empty, you wanna live a life of more significance and meaning, then I'm gonna get into how to do that in this episode.

And also remember, as we talk about health here on this show very frequently, health is not just physical. Health is mental, health is spiritual. I've had so many patients over the years, the reason they were sick with high blood pressure or anxiety or depression or digestive issues or hormone imbalance was due to spiritual and mental health issues.

And the reality is, is that studies indicate that improving your spiritual health can lower your risk of disease, improve the health of your immune system, lower your blood pressure, and just overall improve your healing capabilities.

I can tell you, when my mom had cancer, And she was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and they were told, and they told her she only had a forty percent chance to live. That one of the greatest things we did to heal her was not just changing her diet; it was helping her grow and experience spiritual breakthrough by implementing very specific spiritual habits into her life.

Many of which I will share today. Again, the spiritual habits that allowed my mom to beat cancer. I'll share with you the spiritual habits that have allowed me to. Have a great marriage and flourish in life, and so many others throughout the world. And so I'm really excited today to touch on one of the most important topics we've ever covered, spiritual habits.

Also, before I dive in though, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and follow my weekly wellness newsletter at the link in the show notes. All right, let's start off here and talk about why these habits matter. The first thing I wanna say is, is that Aristotle said this many, many years ago, so thousands of years ago, he said, We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. So here's the reality. You become your habits. One of the things the Bible teaches us is not that we need to accomplish great things. The Bible says we need to become certain types of people. We need to become Christlike.

And so for you, if you wanna be successful in life, it's not about having a certain type of car or a certain type of home or your kids being successful at something. The most important thing is that you are becoming a certain type of person, and your habits are the top thing that will make you become a certain type of person.

You literally become your habits, and your habits also build your identity. There's a Bible verse, it's James 1:22, and it says this, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, or you deceive yourselves. Be doers, have those habits. We see in the Bible Daniel practicing good habits.

He's one of those people that experienced spiritual breakthroughs constantly, And we see he prayed 3 times a day, even in the face of persecution. We saw him fasting at certain times. We see him doing all of these different things in order— a lot of these habits in order to create spiritual breakthrough and become more Christlike.

And I want to mention these spiritual habits have so many benefits, including helping create consistency and a closeness to God. I know that I've experienced Such an incredible closeness with God because of my spiritual habits. And it's led me to have more peace, more wisdom, more strength, more courage, more of an impact in the world, and live a more meaningful, significant life.

So the first habit you want to embrace and embody if you want to become more Christlike and just live your most meaningful life possible is discipleship. I can tell you that The thing that's impacted my life the most, more than anything else, more than any other habit, is discipleship. My biggest life lesson is we become who we surround ourselves with.

And when you surround yourself around the right people, especially the right mentors, people to disciple you, it transforms you. And also, when you disciple others, it transforms you. I had a very close friend of mine who was a pastor once, and he told me this when I was in my 20s.

He said, Josh, If you want to optimize your growth and think about this for yourself, if you want to know the key and you want to grow to the greatest you possible, you want to get to the end of your life and say, I ran the race, I lived my best life possible. Here's what he told me.

He said, you should always be— you should always have someone discipling you and you should always be discipling someone else. He said, when you have that person above you who's pouring into you and then you pour into that person, who's— who you're discipling, he said it optimizes your growth and creates the highest level of growth.

And so you want to position yourself in life to both being taught and discipled and to discipling others. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says this, and we all are being transformed into his image in ever-increasing joy. There's a famous quote by John Henry Newman, and he says, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

If you want to perfect yourself, you should always be changing, always improving, always growing. You should look back 5 years from now and saying, wow, I'm a radically different person. You know, Billy Graham's a great example of somebody who embodied this. There are so many people throughout, throughout history who have really focused on discipleship.

We know that Jesus had 12 disciples that he poured into. We oftentimes feel like that if we're going to change the world, we have to be— we have to have 100,000 followers on Instagram or YouTube. We have to have all these people, these big audiences we're speaking to. And I love what Mother Teresa says, and she says, if you want to change the world, go home and love your family.

Disciple your kids if you're a parent. Have a small group you're discipling over. But doing those things will change your life. And so one action step I would say from here is this: join a growth group or start a growth group. For me, the thing that's helped me grow more than anything the past few years is I started a growth group where I brought in 8 men that I disciple.

And now for my group, now it's very much iron sharpens iron. And so the guys now, again, there's a level of discipleship from me, but also I'm learning and growing with them. And so now at this point, it's more of an iron sharpens iron relationship. But I always have men that are pouring into me, and I'm always pouring into them. Okay, so I'm always being discipled and always discipling others.

And it is the single greatest thing that you can do to grow yourself and experience a breakthrough. And listen, there are benefits of listening to podcasts and being discipled in that way. There are benefits of reading books. For instance, I've been discipled in leadership by John Maxwell and by Dave Ramsey.

I have been discipled in a way, in my, in the way that I became a doctor from people like even, even early on in my career, Jordan Rubin, and then Greg Lohmann, Ben Lerner. You know, there's been a lot of doctors that I've learned from over the years and that have allowed me to become a better doctor.

But spiritually, always, I always have a pastor or somebody who is pouring into me, and I try and grow via reading the books and podcasts, but I always try and do it in person as well. So I want to encourage you, go be part of your church or a synagogue or a place where you can have somebody disciple you. In that way.

And discipleship, I think it really is ideally meeting weekly, but at the very least monthly, where you're part of a growth group and you're doing things to grow and learn. And you're also, when you're being discipled, you're making yourself vulnerable to change. Okay?

You sort of open yourself up so people can see in that person mentoring, you can see some of the flaws, you can share those, and you're, you're, it's, it's like coaching. You're taking corrective feedback. Because you want to grow and become more Christlike. So that's number one habit, is joining a growth group or some sort of group where you can be growing regularly.

Number 2 is scripture reading and meditation. Psalms 119:105 says, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And Saint Jerome said this: ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.

Doing everything we can to memorize Bible verses, to memorize, you know, different, you know, famous quotes from spiritual saints, but ideally spending time in God's Word in the Bible and memorizing and understanding the passages and how to apply these to your life. And then after reading, meditating on the Word and chewing on it. Today we live in a society that is so, so busy.

That most of us never take time to pause and reflect. One of the things that I like to do every morning is open my Bible, read for a few minutes, and then sit there and think about how to apply this to my life and also listen to the voice of God and say— and spend time in prayer there to see if God speaks to me through his word and then meditating and thinking on it.

But oftentimes we read or we listen to something, then we just go versus sitting there and chewing on it. And that's the time when we most hear from God. The time that I've most heard from God is after I read my Bible.

And I just sit there or I go for a walk and then I just listen to what— in asking God to speak to me in some way and hearing that still small voice, which isn't audible, but it's more like the voice of my conscience speaking to me, leading me in the right direction.

You know, Mother Teresa is somebody who regularly meditated on Scripture, which empowered her to serve the poorest of the poor with love and grace. And when we look at monks today throughout many different sort of denominations and even religions in the world, we know that monks will spend a lot of time in meditating.

And one thing you'll notice about monks is they have a very high level of spiritual awareness. They, and part of it is they've built this mindset of meditation where they're kind of constantly meditating and chewing things over. But I really believe that reading scripture and meditation leads to wisdom. If you want to become wise in your life, you can't just rush through life.

You need to pause, reflect and meditate on what you're learning and think about what is the truth here? What is the— what is the— what are the patterns and how can I apply it to my life? And I'll tell you, there are so many times where if I'm in a stressful situation, I can meditate on Psalms 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

And I can think about that, or Matthew 6, and I can think about where it says Jesus talks about, you know, God, God clothes the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. And so he'll take care of me in that same way. And so I can sit there and meditate and knowing That God gives good gifts. He's for me, not against me.

Like, I've memorized these verses and I can meditate on them when I come into trials and challenges in life. And there's so much value there. The number 3 habit for creating spiritual growth is prayer. And with that, it's practicing God's presence. Notice that prayer is a 2-way communication between you and God.

Oftentimes we think that prayer is just something we're just kind of throwing these requests at God and, well, If he gets to him, maybe, maybe he will, maybe he won't. But the reality is this: prayer works, and prayer is a two-way communication. And so we should be speaking to God.

And then part of that meditation with prayer is then sitting there in stillness and listening to that consciousness and what it says to us. Yeah. Thessalonians 5:17 says this: pray without ceasing. Live in a state of prayer all day. One of the things I will do before I go into meetings is I will say, Jesus, I invite in your manifest presence, or Holy Spirit, I invite you into this conversation.

Please be with me as I go into this meeting right now, or as I go and have this, you know, deal with this relationship issue, or as I go and speak, or as I spend time writing. But living in a constant state of prayer. You know, one of my favorite books is, is about Practicing the Presence.

And this is such an incredible book, and it really goes through the life of this monk who is, whether he is washing dishes or he is scrubbing the floors or doing anything all day long, he lives in this, practices the presence of God. It's a man named Brother Lawrence, and it's an amazing, amazing book.

If you want to read a book more on the state of prayer and practicing God's presence, it's such a good one. St. Padre Pio said this, prayer is the oxygen of the soul. It brings life. George Mueller trusted in God through prayer for his provision of to take care of thousands of orphans, and he was able to do because of prayer.

And prayer really, it deepens our faith, it reduces anxiety, it aligns our heart with the heart of God and his will. And so, but again, remember this prayer, it's a two-way communication. We are presenting our request to God. And then we are getting something in return. But you have to have some stillness and listen, whether you're sitting or going on a walk.

But you need to be able to do that as well. And there's sort of something that I do when I pray as well. That way I'm not just asking God for things, is when I tend to pray, the first thing I do is I recognize who God is. God, you're a perfect and loving Father. You're so, so good. You're all-powerful, you're almighty, and there's none like you in all the earth.

So I'll spend time recognizing who God is. And that's an important thing because I think a lot of people don't have the right identity about who God is.

And so if you misinterpret who God is and he's an angry man in the sky, or if he doesn't hear, versus when you start a prayer with recognizing who God is, and you can learn about that by, you could Google search or look on ChatGPT or whatever, you know, who does the Bible, you know, say God is, you know, list off his top 25 attributes. Okay. And then pray those, what those are.

And then what I'll do after I recognize who God is, is I will let him know what I'm thankful for. God, I'm so thankful for how you sent me such an amazing wife. I'm so thankful that I have a mission I love. Thank you for when I prayed for this last week, you sent this person into my life. Okay?

And then the next thing I do is I will present my quest or request to God, and I will, I will ask for certain things in alignment with his will. And then sometimes after that, And then the last part of prayer is, then I'll listen. God, is there anything you would like me to do this week or pay attention to?

And maybe he says, you know what, you need to give Chelsea more hugs, or you need to put your hands on your daughter and encourage her. You need to change this thing in your life. When you were mean to this person, you need to go and ask forgiveness, whatever it is. And so, but that's the format that I followed in prayer that's really deepened my walk with God. Number 4 is Praise and worship.

Live in a state of awe and wonder. Chronicles 16:23 says this: Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Proclaim his salvation day after day. Live in a state of awe and wonder. When I look at the people that have the greatest level of spiritual growth and the best habits, they do things to live in a state of awe and wonder.

And one of the greatest things you can do is spend time in praise and worship, going to church, singing to God. Saint Augustine says this: He who sings prays twice. Okay, so singing is something we saw King David do. We know that he danced, he praised God, and so living a life of praise is important. And I think this is how we should fight our battles, is going in with a heart of praise.

And when I have something that I am struggling with in life, and we all struggle with things, I have something this week business-wise that I really want to break through on. I'm praising for praising God ahead.

I said, God, I already know you're gonna, you're gonna do something here, and I want to Thank you in advance that you're a God that fights for me and that you're working out things behind the scenes. Give me the wisdom and the character to act like you in just being faithful in this situation, right?

And so spending time in praise, and whether that be church on Sundays, on Wednesdays, or just yourself listening to, to praise and worship music and going on a praise walk in the morning, it's a habit that will help you experience breakthrough. It's something I do almost every single morning. Number 5, live a life of service, helping others.

Mark 10:45 says this, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. And St. Teresa of Calcutta said, if you can't feed 100 people, then feed just one. Okay, feed just one. I think everything we can do to take our unique gifts and skills and serve others is of benefit.

You know, even when you see that person sitting on the side of the road, maybe just giving them a dollar, that's serving others. You know, you know, thinking of— think about being a team player at work. How can you go above and beyond to serve the other people on your team? Picking them up a coffee, asking them where they're stuck, seeing if you can fill in, whatever it is.

But focus on serving others. This deepens our humility, our love, our fulfillment, and also especially volunteering where you're getting nothing in return. Maybe it's directing people in the parking lot at church. Maybe it's helping out at a soup kitchen. Maybe it's going on a mission trip, doing something with Habitat for Humanity. Serving helps you become more like Christ.

Remember this, if you wanna grow the most, remember this verse: the greatest of all is servant of all. Amen. And so if you wanna be the greatest, you focus on how can you serve people. One of the things I do on a regular basis, just to give you an example of this, is God has given me a passion And a gifting for helping people with their health.

So one of the things that I do every single week is I will, I will for free create a health plan specific for somebody who I really feel like is in need. Okay? And, and I will do that because, again, and I make sure I don't get paid for it in any way, because I want to be somebody that is serving others out of the goodness of my heart.

And so take whatever gift, skill, thing you have, And give that in service. The next thing here is food and fasting. Okay? What we consume matters. Fasting has been done for thousands of years for spiritual breakthroughs, and it's a great habit because I can tell you this from fasting.

Anytime I fast, I get hungry, and it makes me realize that I'm weak and makes me realize how much I rely on food and realize in an even greater way I need to rely on God. And I try and take that time that I fast and spend more time Connecting with God. And so I want to encourage you to fast. We saw Daniel do this. We saw Ezekiel do this. We saw the disciples do this after Jesus.

We saw the early church fathers do this. We see people who experience breakthroughs fast. There's something amazing about fasting. I can tell you, I've had things in business and things in relationships where I've— where if I really felt like I needed a breakthrough, I fasted. And oftentimes that breakthrough came.

You know, there's a time in the Bible where his disciples come to Jesus and they said, we prayed for this person who was demon possessed and the demon wouldn't leave. And Jesus said, oh, this specific thing takes not only prayer but also fasting with it. So sometimes these habits help along with prayer or even beyond prayer, us experience certain spiritual breakthroughs.

But I wanna say that, uh, I wanna encourage you to fast periodically. In the early church, what they did is they took One day a week, sometimes 2, and they fasted. And so the early church, either on Wednesdays or Fridays, they would take— certain churches— and they would fast up until 3 o'clock or up until dinner. Okay, so today the thing that's most popular is fasting intermittently.

So people basically skipping breakfast, just eating lunch and dinner, and doing that sort of maybe a 4-hour or an 8-hour or 6-hour eating window. But historically, people didn't do that as much. They would maybe eat something light for breakfast. Eat something like for lunch, they would eat a bigger dinner, but they would typically do one day a week where they would fast.

And it typically was Wednesdays or Fridays for the early church. And we know the Jewish community fasted per the Jewish festivals. We know early Christians fasted sometimes around Lent and sometimes not just food, also those things in their life like giving up social media for 40 days or something that we know that is keeping us from being closer to God the Father and becoming more Christlike.

And we know Jesus fasted for 40 days. So we see a lot about fasting in the Bible. So I want to encourage you, take one day a week and do an intermittent fast where maybe you just eat dinner. You won't believe the spiritual breakthrough you'll experience through that. And then maybe there's also times of year, maybe in January or around Lent, where you do that as well. Number 7 is communion.

Communion is such a sacred meal. It's the meal that heals. Luke 22:19 says this, do this in remembrance of me. You know, we take communion at church once a month where I go, but also we have times in our life at our home where we get out wine or grape juice and some of the sourdough bread Chelsea makes, and we will break it off and we will pray together for certain things.

We'll pray for healing for our kids. We'll pray for spiritual breakthroughs. We'll pray if we have friends that are in need or hurting, we pray for them. We sometimes combine our communion, our prayer, and adding communion, even when we're not doing it at church, just at our own home, in order to honor Jesus and ask for his divine intervention, but also just to honor him and remember him.

St. Teresa says this: When you have received him, stir up your heart to do him homage. Speak to him about your spiritual life. Gazing upon him in your soul, where he is present for your happiness. There's something about breaking that bread, drinking that red juice, that wine, and just connecting with God and remembering what he did for you. This is such an important thing.

I, you know, one of the biggest things today that has harmed society is we have forgotten. There's a quote in the Jewish community when it comes to the Holocaust, and it's, never forget. That's such an important thing. Never forget. Never forget the mistakes of the past. The wisest people in the world study history in order to know how to live out the future.

And so you want to pay particular attention to those things that have been done in the past, and that increases your faith. In fact, it's known that when Paul says in the Bible that faith, hope, and love, the greatest of these is love, love is present, faith is past, Hope is future.

Okay, so a big thing to stir up your faith is how has God shown up for your ancestors, for the people in the Bible, for you in the past? And looking at that and remembering that, and then that gives you hope in the future. And so I want to encourage you, hey, take communion.

You know, you can have some crackers at home, some juice, and just remember what God, what Christ did for you, that sacrifice, and allow that to fill your soul. And then you can pour out that love onto others. Number 8 habit here for spiritual growth is community and church attendance.

There was a Harvard study that found that people that lived the longest had the greatest sense of community and had the greatest support around them. We're living in a world today where so many people are lonely, so many people are hurting. We're meant to do life together. Hebrews 10:25 says this, and let us not neglect our meeting together.

Don't neglect— don't not meet together on a regular basis. I know that there's a lot of people that feel like this, and I maybe even had a year or two where I felt like this.

And by the way, of course, this was harder when people went through COVID, where it was, well, maybe there's not that much of a difference if I actually go to an in-person church versus maybe I'll watch online, or, you know, or just, you know, try and be a good Christian or Again, I think some of this extends to the Jewish community as well, or just anybody that's religious.

But there is something about meeting in person. And so let us not give up meeting together. Okay? We want to— there is something about meeting in person. And so I want to encourage you, if you've been away from church, get back there, get involved in a community, and not just, number one, on Saturday or Sunday, meet then. But also another day a week on a regular basis.

I'm so grateful I had parents who had me go to church, not only church, I went to Sunday school. So we'd be there for, you know, at least 2 or 3 hours. And then I went to a Christian school through 8th grade.

And then my mom, I went every Wednesday night throughout high school, throughout junior, throughout elementary school, throughout junior high, throughout, throughout until I left my parents' house. I went to a sun— I didn't just go to a Sunday service. I went to a Wednesday service. And it did so much for me in my spiritual growth.

And so I want to encourage you, we are so busy today, but prioritizing that over other things can help you grow greater than you ever thought possible. St. Thomas Aquinas said this: No one can live without friends, though he has all other goods. Nothing is more valuable than friendship. And so it's important that we are focusing on growing together as a community.

And that you're prioritizing community, whether it be church and growth group, praise and worship nights, and serving the community together. Number 9, Sabbath and rest. It's a gift. Exodus 20:8 says this, remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. Now, I think there's a lot of different denominations within Christianity that have different beliefs about the Sabbath.

I personally believe that we should try and observe the Sabbath. I don't think it's necessarily under the Mosaic law in that way. But I do believe that people, and we see this in the Bible, before the Mosaic Law was even given, there was a Sabbath. We know it says in the book of Genesis, one of the first things, that God took the 7th day in rest and he made it holy.

So I think that there's something about taking a day a week, whether it's Saturday or Sunday, and setting it aside for God and family, where the busyness, the work, all the other things in life. And from being a doctor and a practitioner, I can tell you. That, that would— that, that is healthier for everybody. Everybody should take one full day a week and just focus on God and family.

You're healthier for it. So I'm very mindful of taking one of those 2 days and spending time with God and family. St. John Lubbock says this: rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day Listening to the murmur of the water or watching the clouds float across the sky is by no means a waste of time. This is what people think oftentimes.

They think, well, if I'm just spending time with God or my family, if I'm not doing something all the time, I'm not significant or of value. If you're a person that's constantly striving and you can't rest, you get stir crazy, you start to feel guilty because you're not doing something. There's an identity issue there.

You feel like your value in life and your identity is tied to what you accomplish, and it's not. Your identity is tied to who you are in Christ. You're a child of God. And if you think about it like this, I think about this like with my daughter Arwen and my daughter Aelin. When I see my daughters and I'm, let's say they, 20 years from now, okay, Arwen will be 24.

And if I think about what I want for her in life as trying to be a good father, Do I want Arwen to work and use her gifts and skills? Absolutely. But would it make me happy as a father if Arwen was working 7 days a week, 60 hours a week, and just slaving away all day feeling guilty because she's not working all day?

I would feel terrible about that, and I would not— that I, I would, I would be less proud of her with that versus if she took a day or two a week and just were doing things that made her laugh. You know, maybe she's swimming. Maybe she's out, you know, playing tennis. Maybe she's, you know, connecting with a friend. Maybe she's serving in the community, whatever it is. But she's doing something.

She's cultivating a great family life. That gives me more joy than her working that 6th and 7th day a week and trying to strive in order to make me happy. I'm already happy. I already love her. I'm already proud of her. And so it's really important that if you feel that sense of you just can't rest, going to God and working on realizing who your identity is. And that he loves you no matter what.

And a lot of that is, is in relation to your relationship with God. But taking that day, making it holy, setting it aside. An example of this is Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy, who honors the Sabbath day by closing on Sundays, a decision that hasn't hindered their success a bit.

In fact, I would argue Chick-fil-A is more successful because they've honored God and not worked that day, and they prioritize God and family. Number 10 is repentance, which leads to humility. You know, this is something I think we've, we've lost in a lot of modern churches. We only talk about the positive. We don't focus sometimes on the things that we're doing wrong on a regular basis.

Repenting and moving forward, it leads to a state of humility. I can tell you, when I take time each week and I say, God, you know what, I really messed up this week. I wasn't kind to this person. I have been way too busy. I haven't spent time with you. I have done this, this, and that.

When I repent and confess my sins to God, it brings me to this level of humility and it restores— and it helps defeat pride. You know, Acts 3:19 says this: Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out. St. Augustine says this: The confession of evil works is the Beginning of good works, and this is true.

I think about this when I confess my sins to the Lord, and I and I take time to say I messed up here. It brings such a state of humility. It then inspires me, though, to then do good things—not out of a state of of guilt, out of a state of grace, out of realizing wow God gave His life for me. I am a sinner. I've messed up and done things that I shouldn't. But with that, God gave his life for me.

I now want to do everything I can to honor God with my life.

And sometimes I think that Protestant churches have maybe gone a little bit too far, and then maybe Catholics on the other end, where there's probably a little bit of an imbalance in some congregations between both in terms of this focus on works versus grace, when really it should— you should be full of grace, and that should inspire you to do works, but you should absolutely have both.

King David repented deeply after his sins and was restored. We see this in the Bible as well. And we're living in a world that's very anti-grace today. If somebody messes up, this is cancel culture. We just want to cancel them on both sides of the fence. We should be forgiving, realize, and repenting ourselves from our sins.

And that brings us to a state of humility, because if you don't— if you never think about any of the wrong you've done, it can lead to pride. So there should be an element of doing that, but then you repent, move forward, and then you don't think about it because you're forgiven. Number 11 habit for spiritual growth: sacrifice in giving/tithing. Being generous, a spirit of generosity.

2 Corinthians 9:7 says, each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not Not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. I also love the Bible verse that talks about God. Well, God actually says, test me in this, test me and see that I won't open the floodgates in how much I'll bless you. Okay?

It's about the only place where God just says, listen, if you give, if you tithe, I will bless you abundantly. Anne Frank says this: no one has ever become poor By giving. I agree with that. It's so good. Here's a principle: if you can't trust the all-knowing God with 10%, how can you trust a human being with 100%? This was something that Ashley, the producer of the show, shared.

I think it's a great principle here, and I think it's to think about it like this. And let me share, when Chelsea and I make sure we always are giving at least 10% of our income. And I saw this early on in practice. I saw I was so blessed. The more I gave, the more I was blessed. I want to share another funny story. I had a mentor of mine, an amazing man.

He was a Jewish Christian, a Messianic Jew. And I asked him once, I was in my 20s, and I said, hey, Dr. Ben, I said, how much should I be giving, or how much should I tithe? And he said to me, because there are different beliefs about this, if it's on your total or, hey, after taxes or your income, like what you should give. But I don't— I'm not going to get into those details here.

But here's what he said to me. I said, Dr. Bent, how much should I be giving in tithing? He goes, I don't know, Josh, how much— how blessed do you want to be? And that was it. And it was very convicting for me because it was, listen, he was essentially saying, Josh, listen, The more you give, the more you'll be blessed. Like, don't focus on the letter of the law.

Don't just focus on whatever that 10% number is and sitting there with all these calculations. There should be an element in your heart of generosity and looking for people in need and giving above and beyond. There should be a mission attached to the money. There should be heart associated with this, with giving and tithing as well.

And so I want to encourage you, make sure though, at the very least, that you are giving 10% of your income and write down what that is. Give it on a regular basis and, and see what God does. Write down, go and look up all the Bible verses about tithing, and then look at those and start tithing. And you'll see God will come through in an amazing way. Number 12, spiritual habit.

Is cultivating a sense of awareness and watchfulness, basically spiritual awareness. Awareness is being spiritually alert, watching out for distractions that pull us away from God and looking for how God is intervening in our life. There's a quote, and I love it, and it says this, is that you can look at life where nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle.

When I'm meeting with people and I've— when I pray for things like, you know, recently praying, God, would you send, you know, someone in my life for this or for this, or can you help me with this?

I will then be on the lookout for those people that are coming into my life, and I have a level of awareness of, okay, I wonder if this is the person God's sending, or this is the person, or this is the door God's opening, or this is the door he's closing. I am operating with a high level of spiritual awareness.

The people I know that are that have the greatest spiritual life, that have the greatest level of virtue, they have a high level of spiritual awareness and spiritual intelligence. You know, think about some of the very mature pastors and rabbis and priests, you know, and monks. They have this level— it's almost like you can't rattle them.

They have this high level of spiritual awareness that they've cultivated because they've grown so much spiritually. If you want to grow spiritually, you need to be spiritually aware. Just like there's a level of emotional intelligence where you can tell if someone's hurting, in front of you. And so when they say something mean to you, you don't say something back.

Well, if you have a level of spiritual intelligence, you not only have that emotional intelligence of knowing if someone's hurting, you also know how to love them and you do it. That's spiritual awareness. That's kind of going beyond that emotional intelligence to spiritual intelligence. 1 Peter 5:8 says this, be alert and sober-minded.

Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Spiritual warfare is real. We know Paul in Romans starts saying, saying, listen, this battle is not of flesh and blood. It's of, you know, spirits and principalities. And it just— it's so much— life is spiritual. We tend to just focus on the physical.

But being aware, if you're under attack, something— it could be a spirit of anxiety, it could be a spirit of fear. And praying to God and getting people around you praying for you and focusing on You're building your faith, doing these things to combat it in that way.

I can tell you so many people are sick today because— not because their diet is poor, that's a big part of it, but also because they're spiritually sick or their soul is sick. So focusing on building up and healing the soul and spirit is so important. W.B. Yeats says this: The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

If you start paying attention, more time in prayer, more time in pay— in meditation, and just spending time being spiritually aware, looking out for how God is working, you'll become more aware and sharper over time of the spiritual things happening around you.

I want to encourage you, take a moment each day and reflect on where you might be getting distracted from your spiritual growth and cultivate a state of awareness. And part of this is also practicing the presence ties in of what we talked about earlier. The last thing I want to share here is spiritual habit. This is a bonus.

It's celebrating holidays and pilgrimages from a Judeo-Christian perspective. Leviticus 23:1-2 says this: The Lord said to Moses, speak to the Israelites and say to them, these are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.

And I think we see something very similar where Jesus is doing certain things like communion, like John the Baptist and Jesus with baptism. These are things, certain sacraments, certain things we do on a regular basis, certain spiritual habits that bring us closer to God. But with that, I think our holidays, You know, if you're celebrating Christmas, make sure Christ is in Christmas. Okay.

You know, sitting down and reading in the Book of Luke, you know, the nativity story. Okay. Reading that, watching movies about that, but making Jesus the reason for the season. Very similar thing. If you're hunting for Easter eggs, that's great. But also making sure what you're focusing on and telling your kids about the passion of the Christ. And the crucifixion, right?

Make these holidays about these things. Also, something that we don't talk about as much today, but these pilgrimages, it's like doing a mission trip. Now, in certain, certain religions and in the Catholic faith and Orthodox faith, there is a much more, a greater emphasis on pilgrimage, and it's not as prevalent in the Protestant Church. But I do think we're missing something here.

Pope John Paul II says this: Pilgrimage is a symbol of life itself. It is a way of coming closer to God. By stepping away from the mundane, reflecting on our faith, and seeking transformation. Now, one of the things that Chelsea and I have been able to do, which was— which we've been so blessed to do, is go to places like Rome where we were able to go to the Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel.

And we're excited to eventually do a trip to Israel one day and walk where Jesus actually walked and go to some of those places. So I think there's so many benefits of pilgrimage. And also I think there's so many benefits of just taking your holidays where we're just home, but we are making sure that these holidays that were— that are Christian-based, making sure that Christ is in those.

And so I would say that there is so much that you can gain from taking the holidays and making sure that they're full of the love of God and making that a habit. You know, great habits around Around the holidays is, is a great spiritual habit to have. So here's the reality.

If you want to grow to the highest level possible and live your best life possible, if you want to live a more meaningful and significant life, focus on cultivating these spiritual habits. Now, you might be able to do all 12 and write down 12 and figure out how you can implement them in your life. Or you might take just one and say, okay, I'm going to be more conscious of prayer.

You're going to set aside and pray every meal, or you're going to pray 5 minutes in the morning and read your Bible. One thing I've done is I really focus on doing a spiritual triathlon. It's every morning I start off with praise and gratitude, and then I read my Bible, and then I will pray and meditate.

And I get all of those things in in the morning, and that has caused— helped me grow so, so much. And then I'm part of a growth group. And so I have all of these things that have allowed me to continue to grow and experience breakthrough in life. And I just pray for you right now.

I'm praying and hoping that you are able to experience breakthroughs by developing and adding in a couple of these spiritual habits into your life, or all of these into your health. Remember, again, health is not just physical, it's mind and it's spirit. And we'll continue to talk more and more on this show about not just physical health, but mental and spiritual health as well.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I'd love to hear your feedback. Let me know if you're watching on YouTube, uh, what is a spiritual habit that you're going to go and implement in your life? And which one of these spiritual habits has meant the most to you? And also, do you want to hear me cover more in the future, more topics around spiritual growth and mindset growth?

Would love to hear more in the future. And we get— by the way, we got a lot of great guests coming up. We've got John Bevere, Lisa Bevere, Jordan Rubin. We had Lisa TerKeurst. We're gonna have a lot of spiritual giants that I'm going to be interviewing, and I'm so, so excited about it. And it's going to bring health and nourishment to your soul.

Thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Each and every week we explore the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, and spirit. Make sure to subscribe, like, and share.

Listen, there's a lot of people who are maybe missing out on these spiritual habits, and because of it, maybe it's affecting their soul, it's affecting their spirit, and it's affecting their health. So I wanna encourage you to share it. Thank you, all of you, for being on mission with me. I'll see you next week.