"Maturity"

The church at Corinth was exhorted: "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." (Cor. 16:13) "Act like men!" It's time to grow up and mature. For many, they never grow up. They never seem to mature. They walk around with a chip on their shoulder and the first word said in a way they perceive as against them, they pout and walk off in their hurt. They withdraw and live just with themselves as if to protect from hurt. Is that rather childish? Immature?

"But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." (Heb. 5:14) Some can never discern anything. Their minds, their actions, their attitudes are all about suspicions and knowledge just for knowledge sake. They never have matured because they do not practice the food presented by the Lord.

What is maturity in Christ? Maturity is what leads an individual to upright and loving behavior. For behavior to be upright and loving, there are two elements that must be in place: (1) it must be an obedience of practice from the heart (Rom. 6:17) and (2) it must be from your personal heart and not the demands of another. It is immature to follow someone because that's what they tell us to follow. Mature behavior is a behavior which has the full approval of your inward man which involves your heart. Maturity is gained as you put into practice the things the Lord has brought to your attention. Many read the words of the Lord but quickly turn to man to follow out their ideas.

Here is a great example of what I mean: we take our children to the store and tell them to pick out something they would like. As they look over the goods we have presented before them, they finally pick one. Immediately we say, "no, this is really better." As they look at it, they are given another opportunity and go right back after the first thing they picked. We stop them again. "Look, this is much better! I don't want to tell you again!" They look at YOU and realize it is what you wanted so they pick what you pushed them toward. Where was their heart? You took away their heart and made them conform to yours. That's what happens to us many times. We want people to conform to our way and they never become obedient from their heart. In due time, these will fall away from the Lord. They simply never mature.

We need to be careful that what we are doing to one another is just making them conform and not convicted or practicing the righteousness as revealed from God to our hearts. Our hearts must be engaged in the Lord with a real deep sense of conviction in order to mature. Bottom line, maturity is what you grow in because you do what you do completely and wholly for the Lord and not the expectations of others. Only then will you come into true discernment between what is good and evil.