WHAT DOES CHRISTIAN MATURITY INVOLVE?

For one thing, it involves submission to the Words of God. Jesus had finished His prayer emphasizing the revelation of God:

·       “I made known to them your name [You Yourself], and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Experiencing the love of God (and our unity in Him) depends upon our knowledge of God. It is this love that is essential to our unity, and our unity is essential to our witness, as Jesus had just prayed:

·       “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

Love, unity, and oneness are not optional. They can only be achieved as we allow the Word of God to judge us – all of our inclinations, thoughts, and desires.

Having experienced tons of anti-Semitism, I hated Whites and actually thought they had a nauseating odor. (I had been raised in an area of just Whites and Jews.) Even after the Lord had revealed Himself to me, the idea of entering a church was traumatic, and when I started to attend, I was convinced that these Whites were all hypocrites.

However, I had to submit my thoughts and impulses to the Word of God – a long and painful process. However, I knew Scripture required this of me.

He has brought me a long way in 40 years. I recently wrote an essay I entitled “Why I Call Myself a “Christian” and not a “Messianic Jew,” where I argued that we must not divide the Body of Christ. It disturbed some of my Jewish brethren, but, for Christ’s sake, I thought it had to be said.

Transformation, Growth, and Christian Maturity

From where does growth come? It is product of God, the Spirit bearing fruit in our lives (Gal. 5:22). As the branch must be attached to the base and roots in order to bear fruit, we have to be attached to our Lord (John 15:4-5). Without Him, we can do nothing.

Nevertheless, our efforts matter. Paul described the Christians he was growing as “our letter”:

• You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, recognized and read by everyone. It is clear that you are Christ’s letter, produced by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God—not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh. We have this kind of confidence toward God through Christ. ⌊It is⌋ not that we are competent in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our competence is from God. (2 Corinthians 3:2-5)

After declaring them “our letter,” Paul then insisted that they are “Christ’s letter, produced by us” and written by the Spirit. Well which is it? Does growth come from Paul or from the Spirit? Both! But it is the Spirit working through Paul. Paul therefore confessed that he could do nothing on his own:

• But by God’s grace I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not ineffective. However, I worked more than any of them, yet not I, but God’s grace that was with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Paul confessed that even his strenuous efforts were the work of grace. Consequently, he could not take credit even for his labors! Instead, it was a matter of God working in him to produce His fruit (Phil. 2:13).

The Spirit uses certain means, foremost of which is the Word:

• Like newborn infants, desire the pure spiritual milk, so that you may grow by it for ⌊your⌋ salvation. (1 Peter 2:2; also Rom. 12:1; Acts 20:32; 2 Peter 1:2-3; Psalm 1) 

Paul understood that the Word of God was the tool of the Spirit. Therefore, he entrusted the Church to this Word:

• “And now I commit you to God and to the message of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified. (Acts 20:32) 

But this work of the Spirit does not preclude our obedience, our responsibilities. We must pray (James 4:1-3) and meditate on His Word if we want to receive (Psalm 1). Nevertheless, we thank God for nourishing our heart to accomplish these responsibilities:

• [Jesus] the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God. (Colossians 2:19)

What are these “ligaments and tendons” through which God grants growth? That’s us – the Body of Christ. In order to maximize growth, we need to be connected. How?

• But speaking the truth [of Scripture] 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 4:15-16)

If our muscles are to receive their nutrients, they must be connected to the blood vessels, and the blood vessels to the heart, and the heart to the lungs and stomach. These pull in nutrients from the outside. As the Body does its job, it channels the grace of God (the growth nutrients) to the rest of the Body. Foremost among the nutrients is the “speaking the truth in love.” Why love? If the truth is spoken in the context of love, it is better understood and received. How can we receive the message of truth when we are entrapped by bitterness! However, when we are experiencing the love of the Body, our mouths and ears are open to the next morsel of food.

Why are we not open to the brethren? Why does the food of the Word not find fertile soil among us? Perhaps we are too full.

Imagine being hunted down by ISIS and the only comfort we can find is among our brethren. How different would things be! Thank God for the trials!

Do You Know what’s Good for You?

I don’t. Yesterday, I was having a nightmarish time with my Google blog. I feel like it’s almost family – like my right arm. So when it’s not doing what I want it to do, I’m frustrated – even worse, I threw a bit of a tantrum.

What else can you do when you feel so helpless? There was no one to turn to – to make things right. Every screen was corrupted, unusable, and an affront to all of my sacred intentions. I was certain that the situation represented no less than a significant setback to all of my hopes and dreams.

I should know better. After all, I’m a Bible teacher who, for years, has told everyone else how to live their lives.

Upon returning home, my wife found a broken specimen of my former spiritual glory. Fortunately, Anita has more patience with the computer – even with my own program – than I have. So she started pushing a lot of buttons and found that Google’s screens had all changed because Google had installed a major update.

After a couple of hours and a lot of button-pushing, I saw once again what a fool I had been. The program was actually improved!

We too are improved by the most unlikely circumstances – even the things that feel like curses. The Apostle Paul wrote a lot about this apparent irony:

• We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:3-5)

The Bible prepares us for this uncomfortable reality in so many ways. The ultimate example of this was the suffering of Jesus. Isaiah tells us:

• Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he [Jesus] will see his [spiritual] offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. (Isaiah 53:10-11)

“Satisfied?” How can anyone be satisfied with suffering? It’s not the suffering that should satisfy us but instead what is accomplished by the suffering. The verse continues:

• By his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11)

Jesus endured because He knew what His suffering would accomplish, and this principle - looking to the ultimate goal of the suffering – also pertains to us:

• Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

My Google-directed tantrum hardly qualifies as suffering. However, even in the midst of this minor frustration, the same principle pertains – setting our focus on the bigger picture of what God is accomplishing, even in our worse circumstances.

This requires a certain humility of thought – a recognition that we don’t always know what’s best for us, but He does. Nevertheless, we’re convinced that if we hit the lotto - our material needs now satisfied – we’d then be happy and better able to serve our Lord. I was therefore surprised to read that the lotto winners turned out to be loosers. It wrecked their lives. They thought that they knew what was best for them, but they didn’t. In fact, we don’t even know what to pray for:

• The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. (Romans 8:26)

I’m still learning this lesson, however slowly, perhaps several tantrums away.