Thoughts on maturity
Lately I have been thinking about the issue of Christian maturity. The trigger is more from recent events that happen within my own group and the church. Those are not negative events but they do cause me to think about the gauge by which we measure maturity in the church.
One legacy behind the past thinking in Hope is that the more you serve, the more mature you will be. The logical fallacy is obvious. Serving more doesn't require a lot of understanding. To put it bluntly, all it takes is for one shepherd to intimidate his sheep and serving will happen. However, for very long time, I think a lot of people have come under the impression that the more we serve or the more we are seen serving, the more mature we are. If we serve at leadership, we would be the most matured and be considered 'untouchable'. Indeed, while the proposition that the more mature we are, the more we will want to serve, is true, our level of service does not necessarily reflect our maturity. It is true although that the more we serve, the more we will mature, yet service is not maturity.
Then what exactly is maturity in the Kingdom of God? Lately during the bible study on Ephesians with my LG, I took notice of this verse:
In that case, this means that we are not easily swayed by our emotions and circumstances as well. Even as I am typing out this post, I am in the middle of a battle with someone I know who gladly told me that I am not empowering people enough. It is easy to be swayed by emotions and give in to accusations but this is not the point. The point of maturity it seems to me is to be able to stand firm and even tell the differences between right and wrong. I may feel angry but it doesn't warrant me to send hate emails or smses back to people who attempt to wrong me. Similarly, in different situations, our maturity is tested through the waves and wind and we need to learn how to ground ourselves in the word. It just reminds me of a vision which God gave me when I was praying for a sister one time. It was a vision of a tree. And part of the vision was to have deep root and absorb the nutrients that comes from the spiritual food of God.
Maturity is not simply serving more then. It is more than serving. And I think it is time for believers to stop believing that they can avoid the hard work by serving more and yet not grounding their service in Christ with deeper understanding in the word of God.
One legacy behind the past thinking in Hope is that the more you serve, the more mature you will be. The logical fallacy is obvious. Serving more doesn't require a lot of understanding. To put it bluntly, all it takes is for one shepherd to intimidate his sheep and serving will happen. However, for very long time, I think a lot of people have come under the impression that the more we serve or the more we are seen serving, the more mature we are. If we serve at leadership, we would be the most matured and be considered 'untouchable'. Indeed, while the proposition that the more mature we are, the more we will want to serve, is true, our level of service does not necessarily reflect our maturity. It is true although that the more we serve, the more we will mature, yet service is not maturity.
Then what exactly is maturity in the Kingdom of God? Lately during the bible study on Ephesians with my LG, I took notice of this verse:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful schemeing. - Ephesians 4:14The bible, especially in the New Testament, does differentiate between different levels of believers. In particular, in several occasions, the motifs of infants and consequently adults are being used to describe the believers. Consider the following verse:
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! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. - Hebrews 5:12-14If I am not mistaken in my analysis, the bible considered a matured believer as someone who is able to distinguished good from evil and not tossed around by the waves and anything that the world throws at them. This, to me, means that maturity in Christ has a lot to do with building the firm foundation of our faith and going deeper into the word of God. Even before Ephesians 4:14, the verses preceeding that talked about God giving us the resources in the five fold ministries to build up the body of Christ.
In that case, this means that we are not easily swayed by our emotions and circumstances as well. Even as I am typing out this post, I am in the middle of a battle with someone I know who gladly told me that I am not empowering people enough. It is easy to be swayed by emotions and give in to accusations but this is not the point. The point of maturity it seems to me is to be able to stand firm and even tell the differences between right and wrong. I may feel angry but it doesn't warrant me to send hate emails or smses back to people who attempt to wrong me. Similarly, in different situations, our maturity is tested through the waves and wind and we need to learn how to ground ourselves in the word. It just reminds me of a vision which God gave me when I was praying for a sister one time. It was a vision of a tree. And part of the vision was to have deep root and absorb the nutrients that comes from the spiritual food of God.
Maturity is not simply serving more then. It is more than serving. And I think it is time for believers to stop believing that they can avoid the hard work by serving more and yet not grounding their service in Christ with deeper understanding in the word of God.
AMEN. :) Thanks dear bro, this helps me understand better about true maturity.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think I had to go through that phase of rejecting the imbalanced, distorted or even plain false ideas of "maturity" in the church... which mostly comes from human / worldly ideas...
Again, glad to find that my thoughts are independently on the same track as yours: about being able to distinguish good from evil. I had friends - one of them used to be my CL back many years ago - who were troubled and asked me how they can tell between right and wrong when their own leaders tell them this thing, or that thing...
Troubling. But yes, the serving thing. I remember Hanhui telling me last time, when he was my CL, and I was feeling distressed because I wasn't serving as much as the others who were my age, or even younger (spiritually too), that levels don't mean maturity. I had certain people who had started wondering what was wrong with me (one of them confessed this to me ha) since I wasn't serving as much or as fast as them.
But yes, as HH pointed out, a CL can be more spiritual than a UL, even... (of course respect the office lah... but you know what I mean.) I was surprised to hear that... but realized later on that this was so true.
As someone else observed, we're given higher levels of leadership, not necessarily because you are mature, but because you are trusted.
A thought about maturity. If I remember correctly, the biblical idea of maturity is that of completeness in the fullness sense. Not really that of "seriousness", but much more of soundness. Becoming more like Christ in all that He would speak, think, feel, love, and do.
Fullness.
I remember my shepherd last time telling me that maturity is a process. One can't hurry it in a sense, yet one should take ownership of it. To pull up the plant to make it look taller only damages the roots, but a plant is ultimately expected to bear fruit in due time. When? Only God knows. Yet if we remain in Him, and He in us, we will bear the much fruit He has appointed us to bear.
One last thought. I think maturity therefore also requires that we start transplanting every area of our lives to be rooted in Christ. That our likes and dislikes, our loves and hates, our joys and sorrows... our thoughts and reasons... all these should become more and more rooted in Christ... till we have the mind of Christ, the perfect Man in whom is all the fullness of God. Then we'll see maturity full in us: Christ the vine, and we the branches bearing fruit as He has appointed us.
I guess we can reach the same conclusion because we start at the same point - the Scripture.
ReplyDeleteAmen. Isn't God's Word so cool?
ReplyDelete