What Does It Mean To Have A Spiritual Breakthrough?

When a person lives on mission, the Christian life is filled with spiritual breakthroughs.  My definition of a spiritual breakthrough is a life-changing, sudden, crystal clear awareness of something so important that seeing it, understanding it, causes a positive shift that lifts the human spirit and makes the soul more whole. Breakthroughs represent a debarnacling of the person. By barnacles, I mean the lies, misunderstandings, and vision-dimming beliefs that people acquire and hold onto usually without doing so on purpose. Barnacles are the baggage we lug around due to ignorance and hurt. Even though people are smart, we just don’t know what we’re thinking lots of times. “What was I thinking?” is a very common question we ask ourselves.  We don’t know what we’re doing lots of times. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). 

Breakthroughs happen when literally we “break through” some of the ignorance that darkens our minds, hardens our hearts and causes us to walk in futility (Ephesians 4:17-18). Breakthroughs empower us instead to walk with God (Micah 6:8) and to do so “in a manner that is worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (Ephesians 4:1). 

At Right On Mission our mission is “to teach believers how to live on mission.”  No one can live on mission unless they “learn Christ” (Ephesians 4:20). Learning Christ is the key to learning everything else because “in Christ all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).  Thus every time we have an authentic spiritual breakthrough, we undergo the experience of being “taught in Him” (Ephesians 4:21). 

There is nothing more exhilarating than learning Christ because in doing so, we actually “gain” Him. Thus the apostle Paul says, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).    To have a spiritual breakthrough is to gain redemptive insight in the other-wordly form of gaining Christ. That is why spiritual breakthroughs miraculously transform us. 

Because “truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21) and Jesus Himself “is” Truth (John 14:6), the human heart is freed to soften and love and live every time we truly “learn Christ” (Ephesians 4:20). Because our Lord is infinite, we will never finish learning Him.  It will always be exciting to keep gaining Christ. There is no need to worry about being bored in heaven or feeling understimulated or tiring of the gift of eternal life.  

What I’m describing here is my first spiritual breakthrough. Let me provide some context. When I was a child, for years, I struggled with deep anxiety about the prospect of someday dying and going to heaven. I wasn’t afraid to die. My deep dread was that of feeling stuck and trapped in heaven.  

Heaven, to me, sounded like a very dull place where people would forever walk in circles, carrying empty serving trays, saying, “Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord!” over and over and over ad infinitum.  Back then, I did not realize that God Who created everything I embraced is the very same Creator Who has made and will make heaven far, far preferable to the fallen state we find ourselves in on earth.

I recall so many times in my elementary years of laying awake at night in my bedroom all alone feeling totally overwhelmed by the thought of heaven. I would get up, go to my parents’ bedroom, knock on their door, trudge in feeling embarrassed and weighted by a sense of shame that I did not want to live forever and ever in the heaven that I imagined in my mind.  

My dad could not wrap his mind around my imminent problem. I remember tearfully laying on my parents’ bed with them, curled up by my mother, with me trying to explain the nature of my existential issue. Daddy retorted, “What?  You’re afraid that you are going to go to heaven?” then shook his head and said, “Boy, I wish that was my problem!”

Little did I know that I was a budding theologian. My untrained parents simply lacked the knowledge to explain to me back then, “Honey, honey, honey, the problem is not heaven. The problem is that you need more development in your relationship with Christ. You know Him, but you don’t know Him well enough yet to realize what you are in for. God has designed a super duper series of great big fun surprises, and all of them are going to be so phenomenal and exquisite that we can’t even begin to describe the joy that God has prepared just for you, and also for all the rest of us in Him.”

For me, it was a breakthrough to see the logic of why heaven is not a place to dread.

I came upon that breakthrough by pressing into Christ and studying and reading my Bible and diving into the pleasure of theology. 

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For others, I think there are hundreds and thousands of breakthroughs just waiting to be had by people who feel so offended that God allows evil that they refuse, on that basis, to make it their number one to “learn Christ.”  So in November 2025, I’m going to teach a course called “The Problem of Evil,” and my goal is to offer such lovely theological insights that people see for themselves that God is way, way better than anyone can imagine. Sure, we can decide to believe this, but my heart is to help everyone really KNOW this. That’s why starting in August, I have asked Professor James Spencer, Ph.D. to teach a course called “Knowing How To Know.”

Let’s “learn Christ” together.  I encourage you to make that your number one priority because it will grow your capacity to love God foremost and love people as yourself.