Spiritual Maturity
Earlier this week, Joyce Meyer was talking about something that really stood out to me and gave me some peace. She was talking about how we are God's baby. One example that she used to get her point across was about her daughter's relationship with her newborn twins. Her daughter is not going to be yelling at and be disappointed with her babies if they are not walking when they are 6 months old. She knows that there is a process in growing and no matter how long it takes for them to grow up or how many messes they will make, she will love them the same.
That is kinda like our relationship with God. He doesn't expect us to start out just running the race right off the bat. We start out crawling, and then we learn to walk a little bit. We do learn how to run but it takes time. He isn't going to be pressuring us to be perfect right after we have been born.
God loves us and we are no surprise to God. He already knows how many messes in our life that He will have to clean up. God sees our love for Him when we do things for Him, but a lot of the times what we do He has to go and clean up while we aren't looking. God will cover our tracks and sometimes, whatever messes we will make, He will hide them and we won't even know about it.
I dug a little deeper on the issue of spiritual maturity. I learned in 1 John 2 that there are three successive stages of the Christian life. John categorizes all Christians on this progression in their walk with the Lord in one of these three stages - little children, fathers and young men. These terms have no relationship to the length of time that you have been a Christian or even to the position that you may hold as a Christian. They have entirely to do with our progress in the Christian life, the process of growth that John is describing.
There must be a beginning in the Christian life, but it is only a beginning. We are intended to move on, to go on, to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior . This is a word for knowledge that has to do with knowledge that is gained by experience. Obviously, experience takes time. A father is one who comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ fully over a long period of time.
Christians who are young men in the faith, have moved beyond infancy. The major characteristic of a young man is that he has overcome the wicked one. They are in the process of maturity. One of the things that is true of them is they have begun to realize that our struggle is not really with flesh and blood. People are not really our problem. Our fight is with Satan and with his forces. The battle is with ideas, with attitudes, with temptations, with responses, rather than just those outward circumstances.
Another thing that we know about these young men who have overcome the evil one is that in the process of doing that, they have learned to live deliberately and consistently and step-by-step in fellowship with the Son of God. They have learned to walk at the direction of the Spirit. Although, we cannot do that in our own might, and those of us who are young men in the Lord at least know that much. We have tried everything that we can to resist in our own strength and we failed; but if we abide in Christ, as we walk in His strength and as we obey His Spirit, we begin to overcome the wicked one.
I believe I am in the young men stage and I'm growing and learning a lot of the things that I should be learning. The trials, the pain, the battles and everything else I'm going through is just a normal process that people have to go through to gain maturity. God loves me and He is not continuously disappointed in me all the time. God didn't make us perfect because if He did, then we wouldn't need Him to depend on. I need to quit being so hard on myself and quit being my own worst enemy. I need to start loving and seeing myself the way that God loves me. I will reach the father stage of the Christian life one of these days. I just need to be steadfast in my walk with the Lord and be patient.
1 Peter 2:2-3 (NLT)
"You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can grow into the fullness of your salvation. Cry out for this nourishment as a baby cries for milk, now that you have had a taste of the Lord's kindness."
That is kinda like our relationship with God. He doesn't expect us to start out just running the race right off the bat. We start out crawling, and then we learn to walk a little bit. We do learn how to run but it takes time. He isn't going to be pressuring us to be perfect right after we have been born.
God loves us and we are no surprise to God. He already knows how many messes in our life that He will have to clean up. God sees our love for Him when we do things for Him, but a lot of the times what we do He has to go and clean up while we aren't looking. God will cover our tracks and sometimes, whatever messes we will make, He will hide them and we won't even know about it.
I dug a little deeper on the issue of spiritual maturity. I learned in 1 John 2 that there are three successive stages of the Christian life. John categorizes all Christians on this progression in their walk with the Lord in one of these three stages - little children, fathers and young men. These terms have no relationship to the length of time that you have been a Christian or even to the position that you may hold as a Christian. They have entirely to do with our progress in the Christian life, the process of growth that John is describing.
There must be a beginning in the Christian life, but it is only a beginning. We are intended to move on, to go on, to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior . This is a word for knowledge that has to do with knowledge that is gained by experience. Obviously, experience takes time. A father is one who comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ fully over a long period of time.
Christians who are young men in the faith, have moved beyond infancy. The major characteristic of a young man is that he has overcome the wicked one. They are in the process of maturity. One of the things that is true of them is they have begun to realize that our struggle is not really with flesh and blood. People are not really our problem. Our fight is with Satan and with his forces. The battle is with ideas, with attitudes, with temptations, with responses, rather than just those outward circumstances.
Another thing that we know about these young men who have overcome the evil one is that in the process of doing that, they have learned to live deliberately and consistently and step-by-step in fellowship with the Son of God. They have learned to walk at the direction of the Spirit. Although, we cannot do that in our own might, and those of us who are young men in the Lord at least know that much. We have tried everything that we can to resist in our own strength and we failed; but if we abide in Christ, as we walk in His strength and as we obey His Spirit, we begin to overcome the wicked one.
I believe I am in the young men stage and I'm growing and learning a lot of the things that I should be learning. The trials, the pain, the battles and everything else I'm going through is just a normal process that people have to go through to gain maturity. God loves me and He is not continuously disappointed in me all the time. God didn't make us perfect because if He did, then we wouldn't need Him to depend on. I need to quit being so hard on myself and quit being my own worst enemy. I need to start loving and seeing myself the way that God loves me. I will reach the father stage of the Christian life one of these days. I just need to be steadfast in my walk with the Lord and be patient.
1 Peter 2:2-3 (NLT)
"You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can grow into the fullness of your salvation. Cry out for this nourishment as a baby cries for milk, now that you have had a taste of the Lord's kindness."
posted by ENS at 11:07 PM
2 Comments:
I love the idea that God is not disappointed in me. What does that mean? It must be the opposite--that He's delighted with me. All the time. The Bible says we are the apple of His eye. And that's a nice place to be!
Yes, it is an wonderful place to be! God is too good to us! In Psalm 18:19 (NLT), David declared "He led me to a place of safety; he rescued me because he delights in me." Notice that it doesn't say, "After God delivered me, after the craziness, brokenness and fear was overcome, He delighted in me..." But instead, "while my life was upside down and I was desperate, God rescued me, because he delighted in me." His love is for those who are not yet fixed, who are in need, who are calling for help. Amen to that!
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