Maturity in Christ

The process of biblical change, explained in God's Word, begins when you repent of your sin and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has given you everything you need to make the changes in your life that will please Him and will lead to His blessings. As you continue to obey God's Word, biblical change toward maturity will occur in your life until you see Jesus face to face.  John C. Broger

How many times have you listened to a young person talk about how they can’t wait until they are 18 or they can’t wait until they turn 21?  The interesting thing about this is that you never hear anyone say they can’t wait until they turn 50 or man I can’t wait until I turn 60. 

Why does that happen?  Maturity has a tendency to get our attention and not always in a good way.  When we are in our teens and early 20’s we can’t wait to get our on our own and experience life.  Then we get out there and life experiences us.  We are able to make decisions and choose things that aren’t always good for us.  Maturity sets in.

Too many times we want to rush into maturity.  I think it is extremely ironic that when we are in our teens we don’t want to be like our parents and then later in life we become them. Our parents didn’t get to maturity overnight.  It is an extremely slow, agonizing process.  So in our self-absorbed world, we are young and can’t wait to be an adult and in our old age we look back and long for our youth.  The thing is, the more mature you become the more you wish you had done things differently.  

When I was thinking about maturity it made me think about our Christian journey.  Maturity in Christ doesn’t come overnight and there will be hardship involved.  There will be pain and suffering, disappointment and discouragement. 

In Ephesians 4:14-15 Paul talks about this very thing.  When we mature in Christ we are no longer children. (Ephesians that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ).  When we move from childhood to maturity, we should take on the qualities of Christ and imitate what He did during His short time on earth.  If we are not maturing in Christ we are going the wrong direction.  God provides the tools we need to mature but that maturity will take a lifetime.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I still have a long way to go to mature in Christ.  Every day is another step in that direction if I follow You and Your Word.  Keep me moving forward in the right direction and if I get off course, I pray that You will draw me back onto the path that leads to You and maturity in Christ.   

Scripture: And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Ephesians 4:11-16