Gradual

The loss of spiritual power can be such a gradual thing--so slowly does it infect us that we fail to sense the subtle but deadly decline. We can even be blinded to its reality. God warns us of the danger with simple metaphors--clear, but simple: the drifting away of a boat from the dock, a moth slowly eating away in the back of a closet, the hairs on our head slowly turning gray one small strand at a time.
It all begins, I believe, with our embracing the lie that God is indifferent to our sin. We see grace as the freedom to live however we please--but such is not the case. Grace is the call to embrace righteous living, godly living. We grow in grace by obeying His commands, applying His principles to our lives, by trusting in His promises and finding them to be true. Grace, a license to sin? Paul cries out--and our heart and lives should cry out with Him--"God forbid!" God's grace sets us apart to holy lives in body and soul. The grace-filled disciple rejoices in daily confession--and the strength that it gives.
The second step toward a loss of spiritual power is the desire to live like the world around us. We see that life as being the real life when it is the most fraudulent existence a man or woman can pursue. And it is a never-ending, never-satisfying pursuit. There is a reason why the people of our county--"filled" with the offer of so many freedoms to do as one pleases--a limitless immorality--are so "filled" with neurotic, unhappy humans. And Christians who try to put just one foot into that world soon find themselves with both feet set firmly in the mire of misery--and wondering where their spiritual strength has gone. And often blaming Him for abandoning them. Where are your feet planted? Both of them?
I believe those attitudes--attitudes that slowly sap our lives of spiritual joy and strength--spring from a heart that sets its sights on what it wants rather than on the blessings that it already has. When my "wants" are more attractive to me than my "haves," the boat is drifting, the moth is gnawing away in the closet, the hairs are turning gray. And I find myself spiritually impotent, deprived of all joy, strength-less.
Think it couldn't happen to you? Examine your life. Are you finding His commandments grievous? Are you pursuing world-likeness? Are your "wants" destroying a heart of gratitude for your "haves"? The disciple slowly losing his or her strength finds loving obedience a burden, Christ-likeness shameful, joyful thanksgiving a sour taste in their mouths.
And there is no life in more danger than the life of the disciple turning away from the life of following Him--he or she becomes powerless, empty, joyless, without a sense of His presence, blind to grace, capable of committing any sin.
Please. Examine yourself. Daily.