Tag: maturity

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Numbers Devotionals

Spiritual babies

Numbers

It strikes me just how childish the Israelites were in this passage.

The Israelites wept again and said, “Who will feed us meat? We remember the free fish we ate in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now our appetite is gone; there’s nothing to look at but this manna!” (Numbers 11:4-6)

“Free fish.”

Yeah, I suppose if you consider working as slaves, and being beaten down physically and mentally every day no problem, the fish in Egypt was free.

Here God provides for their needs daily, and all they can do is cry like babies.

That’s certainly how Moses saw them as he started his own whining.

“Why have you brought such trouble on your servant? Why are you angry with me, and why do you burden me with all these people?

Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth so you should tell me, ‘Carry them at your breast, as a nanny carries a baby,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers?

Where can I get meat to give all these people? For they are weeping to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’

I can’t carry all these people by myself. They are too much for me.

If you are going to treat me like this, please kill me right now if I have found favor with you, and don’t let me see my misery anymore.” (11-15)

And when God promises meat for a month for the Israelites, Moses, despite seeing manna drop out of the sky day by day, whines about the impossibility of it all.

To which God replies,

Is the LORD’s arm weak? Now you will see whether or not what I have promised will happen to you. (23)

And he does exactly as he promised.

I wonder: How often do we members of the church act like spiritual babies, making our pastors and leaders act like baby sitters?

How much of a burden do we put on them by our selfish attitudes?

And how often do we as pastors and leaders get frustrated because we are trying to carry the burden of leadership by ourselves.

All we can see is the immaturity of our people, and we start acting childish ourselves by wasting our time complaining to God about them.

What does the church need?

We don’t need people acting like spiritual babies. We need people filled with God’s Spirit.

We need Spirit-filled leaders who do not simply complain about the lack of maturity on the part of their people (spiritual babies though they may be), but leaders who pray that God would fill their people too.

We need leaders who train the people in their care to use the gifts God has given them.

And we need people who don’t burden the leadership through their constant complaints, but who through God’s Spirit support the leadership by doing their part in ministry.

The body of Christ is not, or at least should not be top heavy with the leaders doing all the work and all the rest just taking in food like a baby.

Rather each person, filled with the Spirit, should be fulfilling the roles and tasks that God has given them.

In that way, we will

all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.

Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ.

From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part. (Ephesians 4:13-16)

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James

That we may be mature and complete

Wholeness

What is God’s intention and desire for us?

In a word, “wholeness.”

That we would be whole in our relationship with him. That we would be whole in our relationships with each other. That we would be whole in every aspect of our lives.

That’s a comforting thought, isn’t it? We all want to be made whole.

The next thought might not be so comforting: It is for the purpose of being made whole that we go through many of the trials and struggles we do.

That’s why it’s hard for us to accept James’ word to us when he says,

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:2-3)

Pure joy? When we face suffering?

Yes. Pure joy. Why? Because these trials produce perseverance in our lives. Why is perseverance so important?

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (4)

In short, the path to wholeness is one of persevering through trial. For through those trials, we learn to cast aside trusting ourselves and our own wisdom.

The reason our lives are so broken is that we have spent our entire lives trusting ourselves and our own wisdom. But through our trials, we learn just how vain life is living that way.

But when we turn to God, learning to trust him and his ways, and we persevere in living that way even through trial, then we find wholeness. In our relationship with him, with each other, and in every aspect of our lives.

That’s why James tells us in the next verse,

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. (5-8)

As I read this, I can’t help but think of Hebrews 11:6, where it says,

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Wholeness comes down to trusting God. If we doubt God’s goodness in our lives, we will never do the things he asks. And if we don’t do the things he asks, our lives will remain the broken shells they are.

How about you? Do you want to be whole, when all the while you’re holding on to your wisdom and your ways? You can never be made that whole that way. That way leads only to brokenness and despair.

But if you will trust in God, he will bring you out of the trials you are going through. And he will bring you out mature, whole, and complete.

What will you do?

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Hebrews

What true maturity is

Hebrews

There are some Christians that long to grow deeper in the faith. To learn the deep things of scripture that go beyond the simple gospel message. The question is, “Are they ready for it?”

The audience that was reading this letter to the Hebrews apparently wasn’t.

The writer tells them,

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! (Hebrews 5:11-12)

What does he mean by milk? He tells us in chapter 6.

It’s things like repentance from sin, the importance of faith, Christian baptism in contrast perhaps to Jewish washing rituals, the laying on of hands, perhaps in reference to receiving the Holy Spirit, and to resurrection and judgment.

All these things our basic to our Christian faith. We need to know them. But they are just a starting point.

A starting point to what? A starting point to being made complete and whole.

And that means going beyond hearing the message and having it become practical in your life.

To truly trusting that God loves you and that his way is best.

To believing we are really dead to sin now, and are called to live a new life in Jesus as new creations.

To loving God so much for what he has done, that our actions, our thoughts, and our very lives are colored by that love.

In short, we put away sin by the power of the Spirit who works in us, and put on righteousness becoming more and more like Christ each day.

That’s what maturity is. It isn’t simply knowing the Bible. It’s not simply knowing about the deep things of God. Maturity is becoming Christlike in every aspect of our lives.

Put another way, maturity is becoming whole as people. It’s becoming the people that God intended us to be from the very beginning.

But immature people are still very much incomplete in their character. They still don’t even know what it means to be whole as people. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way,

Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. (Hebrews 5:13)

In contrast, he says about the mature,

But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (5:14)

A truly mature person hears the Word of God and puts it into practice. And through that experience of putting the Word of God into practice, they learn what it means to be whole. They learn what things are truly good and what things are evil.

But many Christians are still slow to learn. The ESV puts it,

You have become dull of hearing. (5:11)

How does that happen? We hear God’s word, he pricks our heart to action, but we choose to do nothing. And in so doing we harden our hearts to him. But the more we do that, the less effect God’s Word has on our heart.

The result? We remain broken, incomplete, and immature.

How about you? Are you a doer of the Word? Or do you merely a hearer of it?

God wants us to be whole and complete. But that will never happen as long as we continue to harden our hearts to him.

How mature are you?

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Philippians

Pressing on

Pressing on

Very few days go by when I don’t realize just how far I have to go to be like Christ. I think marriage does that to a man.

I look at the example of the husband Christ is to the church and the kind of husband I am to my wife, and I quickly realize that I fall far short far too many times.

And so as I look at Paul’s words when he talks about how he has yet to become all Christ has taken hold of him to be, I can totally relate to him. Honestly, it can be discouraging. But I cling to what Paul says in verse 12.

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (Philippians 3:12)

I like how the ESV puts it,

I press on to make it (Christ’s righteousness, a relationship with him, his sufferings, his death, his resurrection) my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

“Because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

That’s a comfort to me. I don’t have to earn my standing with Christ. He has already made me his own. I belong to him now. I am his child.  And so even when I fail, I don’t need to fear that he will reject me. I am already his.

And so now I press on, not to earn my standing with God, but to fully experience all that I have in Christ.

His righteousness. His sufferings. His death. His resurrection. And most importantly, a relationship with Jesus Christ himself. To come to know him as well as he knows me.

So in my failures, and even in my successes, I say as Paul did,

One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (13-14)

I don’t want to dwell on my failures. That will only drag me down. And I don’t want to dwell on my victories. Because that will just make me complacent.

But each day, I want to keep my eyes on the prize. I want to see each day what God has for me, and to become the man that he created me to be.

And Paul says that should be all of our attitudes. He says,

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 

Only let us live up to what we have already attained. (15-16)

Do you think you’re mature? You’re still not where you need to be. Press on.

Do you think that you’re a failure. God has already made you his own. Press on. And wherever you are, don’t start going backwards.

But live up what to you have already attained. And then push further. Not in your own strength. But in the power of the Spirit who lives in you.

How do you live your life each day?

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1 Corinthians

To become mature

1 Corinthians

Paul says here in verse 11,

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

From the context of this passage, Paul seems to be comparing what life will be like in heaven with what it is like here on earth.

The picture seems to be that when we are in heaven, we will be mature, while here on earth, we are in many ways immature. And because of our immaturity, we still need many crutches in life.

We need prophecy to help us hear the word of God more clearly.

We need tongues to pray when we don’t even know how to pray, or to communicate the gospel with others when we don’t know their language.

We, to a large degree, are dependent on knowledge developed by finite minds to try to understand who God is.

But in heaven, all these crutches will be unnecessary, as we see God face to face.

That seems to be the main gist of what Paul is saying here.

But as I think about it, I wonder if Paul wasn’t also giving the Corinthians a challenge to mature while they were still here on earth.

Certainly, he had already blasted them for their immaturity earlier in the letter (chapter 3, verses 1-4).

And so perhaps he was telling the Corinthians, “It’s time to grow up.

When you were a baby Christian, you still thought much as the world did. But it’s time to become men and women of God.

It’s time to put aside your petty squabbles. To put aside your pride because of what gifts you have or how ‘blessed’ you are. And to become mature in your thoughts and actions.”

How about you? Are you still thinking like a child? Talking like a child? Acting like a child? Or are you becoming mature in your faith?

Let us not be satisfied with remaining baby Christians throughout our entire lives. Instead let us grow up into maturity.

To be sure, no matter how far we advance here on earth, there will still be a major jump between our spiritual condition here and what it will be in heaven.

But let us not make that an excuse to remain spiritual babies.

Instead, each day let us make it our goal to press on to maturity, growing each day in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 6:1; 2 Peter 3:18)

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1 Corinthians

Immature

1 Corinthians

In chapter 1, Paul talks about those who are mature (1 Corinthians 2:6) and those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:15)

But at the beginning of this chapter, he makes clear that the Corinthians fit neither description. He said,

Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly–mere infants in Christ.

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly.

For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?

For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men? (1 Corinthians 3:1-4)

Very hard words. But what would Paul say about you if he were to look at you? More importantly, what would Jesus say about you?

Now let me be clear, if you are a young Christian, new to the faith, I’m not talking so much to you. Obviously, as a baby Christian you have much to grow, and that’s fine.

But if a baby never grows up, there is something seriously wrong.

If my 5-year-old daughter were still drinking milk from a bottle there would be something wrong. That’s cute in the early years, but not at 5.

If she were still crawling instead of walking, if she were still babbling instead of talking, those would be serious problems.

And yet so many Christians remain babies. They never really grow up. What do I mean?

In short, they remain worldly.

For the Corinthians, they showed this in that they continued to have hearts full of jealousy and were constantly quarreling with one another.

They had hearts that were full of pride, comparing themselves to one another, and looking down on others. And it was tearing apart the church.

How many churches today split for the same reasons? How many Christians leave their churches for those very reasons? Those are marks of immaturity.

So if your heart is still full of these things, how do you start to mature?

You need to get back to the basics, and it’s rooted back in the milk of the gospel. Namely, that God loves you. Not because of who you are, or what you have done, but because of who he is.

And he loved you so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for your sins.

Why do we have hearts of pride? Why do we compare ourselves with each other? Why are we jealous of others and quarrel with others?

Because these basic truths have not sunk into our hearts yet.

If we really know that God loves us that much, what others think of us won’t matter. There’s no need for jealousy or for comparisons with others because we know that God accepts us as we are.

More, we know that there’s no room for pride because we know that we have nothing to boast about.

As Paul will say later, everything we have we received from God. And if we have merely received it (in contrast to working for it), where is the room for boasting? There is none.

How about you? Have these truths sunk into your heart?

Let us no longer be worldly. Let us no longer be immature.

Rather, let us soak ourselves into these truths. And as we do, we will grow and become the people God desires us to be.