{"id":3279,"date":"2017-06-05T02:02:34","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T02:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/v2.garykinnaman.com\/?p=3279"},"modified":"2017-06-05T02:02:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T02:02:34","slug":"what-the-heck-is-spiritual-maturity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/2017\/06\/05\/what-the-heck-is-spiritual-maturity\/","title":{"rendered":"What the heck is SPIRITUAL MATURITY?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been doin\u2019 this ministry thing for decades. I\u2019m a mature adult, but am I a mature Christian? What does that mean? What is spiritual maturity? I think it\u2019s an oxymoron, and I want to tell you why.
\nWhat spiritual maturity isn\u2019t<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve identified five popular Christian things that are not evidence of spiritual maturity:
\n1. Spiritual gifts. You\u2019d think that people who are spiritually sensitive or spiritually gifted would certainly be mature Christians. After all, don\u2019t we know that God doesn\u2019t use idiots? Or people who smoke and drink? You have to be somebody special for God to use you in special ways, right?
\n2. One or several seminary degrees, or years teaching the Bible. Don\u2019t we all admire people who can open the Word and take us deep into the mind of God? I have two seminary degrees, I\u2019ve preached countless sermons, and I was a contributor to the Thomas Nelson Spirit-Filled Life Study Bible, specifically writing the study notes for the Book of Acts. I\u2019ve written not a few books, too, but some times I\u2019ve heard this voice in my head: Grow up!
\n3. Faith like Oral Roberts. We all know people who seem to have the capacity to believe God for great things. To pray for amazing miracles. There\u2019s a cloud of faith witnesses in Hebrews 11. Consider them! And then think about yourself, how spiritually wimpy you feel. Maybe because you are. Don\u2019t you know that if your prayers aren\u2019t answered with some regularity, you must not be everything God wants you to be? Where\u2019s your faith, sister? Brother?
\n4. Making huge personal sacrifices. Surely this gets God\u2019s attention! For many years I taught for Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in their Discipleship Training Schools, DTS as they call it. I frequented their University of the Nations in Kona, Hawaii, an invitation I never had to pray hard about. At that location, they offered the \u201cCrossroads\u201d DTS for mature adults who were considering a midlife transition into ministry and mission. I was humbled by the sacrifices those families made, like literally living with three children on the old, rusty Mercy Ship Anastasis.
\nOr a pastor friend who grew up in a grass hut in the jungle in Africa. Or the people we met in the Frontiers candidate training, young families pledging their lives to serve in unreached Muslim communities in some of the most remote places on earth.
\nI feel ashamed when I\u2019m with people like that. Yes, leading a large church was painfully difficult at times, but to take my family to someplace where we may just disappear? Well, I\u2019m not up for that.
\n5. Being on fire for God. My exec pastor and I, in line at a buffet, were talkin\u2019 church. A vibrant young woman ahead of us turned around and asked, \u201cAre you guys born-again Christians?!\u201d I couldn\u2019t resist responding, \u201cIs there any other kind?\u201d Of course this pushed her evangelism button. So I held up my hand in the stop position and said, \u201cYes, we are born-again Christians, and I\u2019m a pastor.\u201d She told me proudly that she was in a church that was \u201con fire for God.\u201d When I heard that, I felt a twinge of failure. \u201cI\u2019m a pastor of a big church,\u201d I thought, \u201cbut in front of me is a true child of God.\u201d
\nSo don\u2019t you kinda look up to others when they have spiritual gifts, or deep knowledge of the Bible, or amazing faith, or make extraordinary sacrifices for God and others, or have boundless passion? And haven\u2019t you ever felt a little less of yourself when you see those things in others? Or question your own walk with God?
\nBut spiritual maturity is not about all these wonderful spiritual things. In other words, maturity isn\u2019t about being spiritual, whatever that may be. Christian maturity is about only one thing: love. Check out what St. Paul writes in the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. Right there in the opening verses he lists five wonderful things that are not the full measure of any man or woman. Actually, it\u2019s where I got my list of the Big Five above, good things that wither in the heat of the One Big Thing:
\nIf I speak in the tongues of men and of angels [spiritual gifts], but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [I\u2019m just makin\u2019 a lot of noise.] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge [two seminary degrees and\/or decades of being a Bible expert], and if I have all faith [like Oral Roberts or Kenneth Copeland] so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have [making huge personal sacrifices for God and others], and if I deliver up my body to be burned [yeah, on fire for God!], but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
\nSo what is love?<\/strong> Glad you asked. Paul goes on:
\nLove is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
\nI read that and, gulp, it sure isn\u2019t me a lot of the time. And I\u2019ve been helping people understand God\u2019s word for decades. Someone said to me recently, \u201cIt\u2019s not what you know. It\u2019s what you love.\u201d And Jesus commanded us to love our enemies. I don\u2019t do that very well, either.
\nThe grand finale in verse 8 (ESV): \u201cLove never ends.\u201d I take this to mean \u201clove has no limits.\u201d Like God in Christ. What about God in you?
\nAnd now for the maturity part right there in the love chapter: \u201cWhen I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways\u201d (1 Corinthians 13:11). What are childish ways? Anything that doesn\u2019t fit in verse 4-7.
\nSo how do we become mature? How does love become our supreme virtue? It\u2019s painfully simple: When life strips away our self-trust and self-importance, and we become fully immersed in our relationship with God. The Apostle Paul put it this way, \u201cFor you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God\u201d (Colossians 3:3). Ponder that. Please ponder that.
\nAnd James says this about becoming mature: \u201cConsider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything\u201d (James 1:2-4).
\nMaturity in Christ is not so much about what we gain, but what we lose: \u201cWhat good will it be,\u201d Jesus tells us, \u201cfor someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?\u201d (Matthew 16:26) The Greek term for \u201csoul\u201d here is psyche, that would be everything about you and in you which defines you and is important to you. Like spiritual gifts, supreme knowledge, fantastic faith, sacrificial service, boundless passion. And what other things can you think of?
\nAll of these things are good and helpful, but if they dent my relationship with Jesus, they\u2019re nothin\u2019.
\nSo what is Christian maturity<\/strong>? Let me suggest a few thoughts.
\n1. Maturity is relating and responding to people and circumstances just like Jesus<\/strong>. How many of us have mastered that one?
\n2. Maturity is emotional intelligence<\/strong>. What\u2019s that? Allow me to drift away from being \u201cspiritual\u201d and share a couple things from the Harvard Business Review.
\nWhen asked to define the ideal leader [or a gifted, mature person?], many would emphasize traits such as intelligence, toughness, determination, and vision\u2014the qualities traditionally associated with leadership. Such skills and smarts are necessary but insufficient qualities for the leader. Often left off the list are softer, more personal qualities [love? Fruit of the Spirit?]\u2014but they are also essential. Although a certain degree of analytical and technical skill is a minimum requirement for success, studies indicate that emotional intelligence may be the key attribute that distinguishes outstanding performers from those who are merely adequate.
\nPsychologist and author Daniel Goleman first brought the term \u201cemotional intelligence\u201d to a wide audience with his 1995 book of the same name\u2026 In his research at nearly 200 large, global companies, Goleman found that truly effective leaders are distinguished by a high degree of emotional intelligence. Without it, a person can have first-class training, an incisive mind, and an endless supply of good ideas, but he still won\u2019t be a great leader.
\n[Here are the] five components of emotional intelligence that allow individuals to recognize, connect with, and learn from their own and other people\u2019s mental states:
\n\u2022 Self-awareness
\n\u2022 Self-regulation
\n\u2022 Motivation (defined as \u201ca passion for work that goes beyond money and status\u201d)
\n\u2022 Empathy for others
\n\u2022 Social skills, such as proficiency in managing relationships and building networks
\nThere\u2019s a famous Bible passage about emotional intelligence: 1 Corinthians 13!
\n3. Immaturity is acting like a toddler<\/strong>. There\u2019s a Bible passage for that, too, also in 1 Corinthians. Paul writes, \u201cBrothers and sisters [who are feuding with one another], I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly [sarkikos, that is, fleshly, carnal)\u2014mere infants in Christ\u2026 You are still worldly. [Why would Paul says this?] For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?\u201d (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)
\n4. Maturity is getting along with others\u2014and loving and forgiving them when they can\u2019t get along with you<\/strong>. Bear with me as I repeat myself: Love has no limits. Is God\u2019s love limited? Is God\u2019s love in you for others limited by things in you that hide God\u2019s love? Paul makes this clear in his second letter to the Corinthians.
\nAll this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people\u2019s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ\u2019s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).
\nThe last phrase takes my breath away. When I read it, I have to fall to my knees: as though God were making his appeal through us. Me, letting you see the relentless love of God? When I feel like having you arrested and serving a life sentence? Or worse? Never forget that Jesus prayed for the people who were nailing him to the cross: \u201cFather, forgive them.\u201d Think about it. That prayer was for you and me, too.
\n5. Christian maturity is this: Love God with everything in you\u2014and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself<\/strong>. What\u2019s that called? The Great Commandment! What\u2019s the key word in the Great Commandment? Love! Faith, hope, love; the greatest of these is love.
\nSo how do we do this? How do I do this? With great difficulty, because I do not want to die to myself and hide my life in Christ. Yet, through the years, some scriptures have taken the edge off my carnality. Please read them slowly and answer this question: What is God saying to me about my relationship with him and others? What should I be confessing to God and asking for his forgiveness and cleansing? What are some things God is telling me to do? To do differently?
\n\u2022 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21).
\n\u2022 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).
\n\u2022 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20)
\n\u2022 The Spirit however, produces in human life fruits such as these: love [yep, here\u2019s where it all starts), joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance and self-control\u2014and no law exists against any of them. Those who belong to Christ have crucified their old nature with all that it loved and lusted for. If our lives are centered in the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25 \u2013 J.B. Phillips).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been doin\u2019 this ministry thing for decades. I\u2019m a mature adult, but am I a mature Christian? What does that mean? What is spiritual maturity? [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykinnaman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}