Spiritual Maturity

When we decide to become christians we soon find that we are not only on a path to get to heaven and an eternal reward, but we are also have started a personal journey. This journey becomes as much about us as about God. We soon discover God has authored a faith in us that He wants to develop ... and finish. We begin to understand that the dreams, plans, aspirations, and thoughts of our old life are being changed by a process that God is completing in us. God is taking us somewhere as a person as a well as a christian.

Part of growing from a child to an adult concerns development of our mental and emotion, and social capabilities as well as our physical growth. Physical growth, if we are well fed, get our exercise and rest, and are careful to protect ourselves, will for the most part take care of itself. But emotion and mental growth rely largely on outside influences. The experiences we have in life and the information that is poured into our head through life’s circumstances is what shapes us as a person as we grow older. This process is called maturation.

Maturing involves not only input of information, but also decisions we make about that information. How we deal with information, whether we accept it or refuse it, whether we act upon it or decide to ignore it shapes who we become and to what extent we mature.

Sometimes we label people as being immature. We say this because we expect certain behavior, as a norm, in certain situations.  Paul wrote: “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) We expect that when people get to a certain age that they have gained enough life experience to make decisions a certain way. When someone doesn’t react to those norms, we consider them immature.

One of the processes of maturing has to do with how we react with our environment and our society. We teach our children from early on, lessons that help them deal with the environmental and social issues they will face. Some of the most important lessons we learn in that maturation process is relating to the people in our world. As responsible mentors we help children learn how their decisions not only affect them but also how they affect the world around them. Understanding that actions affect others and how they affect others is an important part of maturing.

From an early point in a child’s life we begin helping them learn how to interact with others. We teach them things like: don’t bite, sharing, and be polite, among others; with the hope that they will be able to blend into society in a mature way. 

Part of the maturation process is being able to think outside of ourselves. A newborn has one thing on his mind: hisself. He is completely absorbed in his own needs. I have never heard a newborn ask their mother, in the middle of the night, “Is this an inconvenient time to feed me? Would you like some more sleep? Should we do this later, I know you are tired?” Babies are totally self-centered creatures. As a child grows we help them mature by challenging them to think outside of themselves. We teach them to consider how their decisions will affect the world around them; especially the people in their sphere of influence.

I think this concept applies directly to christian maturity. I have seen many christians, as born again newborns, come into this world hungry and helpless, needing to be cuddled, fed, watched, and helped out of their own messes. They need a guiding hand and to be look after by someone who understands the dangers of the world around them, and the things they truly needed. I have watched as they began to stand on their spiritual legs and and began to walk in the word. Then they began to talk, in terms of faith and eternal values.

But for some, the process of spiritual maturity ceases. Despite long years of christian experience they remained in a immature state. They continue to have the same spiritual maturity that they had when they were very young. As with nature, just feeding and caring for the body doesn’t bring with it maturity. So it is with those who seem to feed from God’s word, and attend to things that keep their spiritual man alive but their maturity level never changes. The sign of christian maturity is not measured in years as a christian. As with the natural side of man, I am sure we know many people who have spiritual age but not spiritual maturity.

One of the true signs of spiritual maturity is thinking outside ourselves. When our spirituality focuses on our own needs, and we are not able to see outside ourselves, we really have missed part of the point of being a christian. (see Matthew 22:35-40) God provides us with resources that equip us to reach outside ourselves. God’s Spirit is sent to us to empower us to minister to others. God’s gifts are tools for us to impact the lives of those around us. 

It is often necessary to surmount the spiritual struggles we have so that we can begin to minister. It is easy to fall back into failure when it comes to spiritual struggles rather than allow God to help us overcome them. When we don’t center in on finding the solutions to these struggles, they will clamp tight on our spiritual lives, like the steel teeth of a bear trap, and we will go nowhere in our spiritual growth. 

One other sign of spiritual maturity is being able to see ourselves for what we really are; not making excuses for our shortcomings, but instead making plans to allow change in who we really are. (With God’s help of course!)(see James 1:22-24) God will shine light in the dark areas of our lives not with condemnation, but with the offer to empower us to change. But... change must flow from our own personal initiative. God does not twist arms. People who cannot accept God’s revelation in this area, and who cannot accept change in their spiritual lives, simply are not spiritually mature. Anything that grows is in the constant state of change. When we look at ourselves and see that spiritual change is not happening, or that we are on the same spiritual level we were years ago, then we must be mature enough to face ourselves in soul searching, and own up to the fact that this will not lead to spiritually maturity. Wanting God to bring attention to our failings and wanting Him to change those things, is, in fact, part of spiritual maturity.

If we only see ourselves, our struggles, our lives, and our spiritual journey, letting it consume who we are, then we must ask God to help us mature by turning us outward. The mature christian is one who comes in tune with the plight of the cold, dark, hurting world around them. The mature christian becomes enveloped with the passion to love... to point of action. The mature christian lives out the love of christ. That kind of christian does not walk down a public sidewalk, through a grocery isle, or out church doors without being pricked by the condition of those around him. Mature christians cannot help but to hurt with those in pain, to bear burdens with those who are heavy laden, and to sacrifice pleasure and gain for those who experience neither. 

If we cannot pour into the world around us what kind of vessels are we. God wants to mature us so that we are prepared to meet a world, a church, a family, a society where they have their need. 

Are you mature? Do you continue to grow and to change, or have you settled in a stagnant place? Have you become stuck in the bog of who you are? Is your life consumed by your issues, your concerns, your life? Are you a funnel of God’s love and grace to people, or has your personal interest bottlenecked your ability to serve God and man? A mature christian ask, answers, and deals with these questions. 

Anything in nature that isn’t growing is dying. Anyone in this christian process that is not maturing is most likely doing the same.

2 Corinthians 13:11 (NLT)
Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.