- A personal relationship with God, through Christ, is the necessary first step for spiritual growth...which is the only real growth. - All growth after that first step is in relationship with others.
If anyone is looking for an in-depth understanding of why they can or cannot overcome personal limits, this is the best resource I've seen. And if you follow John Townsend or Henry Cloud's work, this is a decent summary of all they have been teaching over the years.
The authors face the classic dilemma of theological and psychological integration: "It seemed to me that there was the spiritual life, where we learned about God and grew in our relationship to him, and then there was the emotional and relational life, where we learned how to solve real-life problems" (p. 19). Cloud and Townsend answered the challenge head-on by seeking the Bible as their sole authority in all of life and behavior and now teach wholeheartedly "the Bible as the source for teaching about growth and healing" (p. 10).
The book, therefore, examines three areas of growth: (1) Knowing God more deeply [what we traditionally have called 'spiritual growth']; (2) Knowing yourself more deeply [emotional growth]; (3) And knowing others more deeply [relational growth].