Let’s start the summer off right, with a lighthearted chat about spiritual maturity! I know, I know… “lighthearted”.
Any whoo… I was thinking about my kids, as I always do, and so many parallels that I’ve found in how we live our lives and in our spiritual journeys. The obvious is used as an example in scripture, when babies are young they drink milk, and as they grow older and stronger, they need food that is more nourishing. Our faith journey requires the very same thing and as believers, we should want that for ourselves.
Remember when you were saved? There was this ferventness to know as much as you could about Jesus… that’s the natural response to salvation. “Wow, this guy died for me?? This perfect God, who was fully man, left Heaven and died for me?” … Who wouldn’t want to get to know Jesus better, right? Well, life… life is really good at distracting us, and if we’re not guarding our walks (our faith journeys) we can get stuck.
Going back to raising/teaching kids: When they were little, walking and stuff, the lessons while we were crossing the street were always about looking both ways before crossing. Could I have continued with that same lesson until they were 16? Sure. But would it have been relevant or prudent? After all, there’s a lot more to life than just that. Similarly, I think that’s how we need to learn as growing believers too. The lessons should get more complex, more interactive, more granular as we grow. How many times am I going to be taught the same lesson before I grow distracted, weary or worse… desensitized?
Faith without works is dead. But what really motivates the believer to do good works? Is it just the reality of Jesus Christ as our savior? Or is it, growing closer to Him, and gaining a better understanding of His character that moves a believer to good works? Is it out of obedience, or, is it out of love?
How do we (believers) love what we do not know? If all we know about the character of God, (the attributes of God, the sufficiency, the majesty, and the sovereignty of God) is what we’ve heard from a pulpit on Sunday’s: are we getting to know HIM, or are we getting to know the version of HIM that our pastor’s present?
Pastors carry a burden to teach, but brothers and sisters, we carry the burden of the student. Ours is to study and to seek out, we are to learn. Surely, we should be so well educated on God’s word that IF (IF) our pastor ever says anything that does not align with scripture it would jump out at us like a freaking jack-in-the-box at that final ding of a song.
Salvation is where Jesus finds us. Spiritual maturity is where we could go… if we want to.
My humble opinion… the more we know the fullness and complexity of God through the revelation of His word, the more intently we will move and live in obedience to HIM, out of love. We can’t but be moved to serve, and give, and love indiscriminately, once we better understand the character of God.
My parenting journey didn’t end at crossing the street. Our journey in our faith requires more than John 3:16. The entire work of scripture is for teaching, training, and correcting. If we want to live like a mature Christian, let’s make sure we are eating the meat and potatoes of the word of the Lord.