What exactly does the term spiritual maturity mean in Biblical context? The Bible has much to say about the subject. It is a subject of crucial importance in understanding the Bible in this journey called ‘life.’ Spiritual maturity carries with it a key to unlocking our understanding of the Bible, which is the manual needed for the journey.
Spiritual maturity is the process of becoming like Christ which takes time. That time is broken down into seasons of sowing and time to meditate and access before harvesting in the truth. Spiritual maturity is simply the process of growing up in Christ, which is referred to in 2 Corinthians 3:18 as ‘being transformed into the same image [of Christ] from glory to glory…” It means to come to the same revelation or mind of Christ. To think like Jesus thinks. To see what Jesus sees. To perceive as Jesus wants us to perceive. Spiritual maturity, as seen through the lens of Romans 8 means that your spirit being led and dominated by God’s Holy Spirit, then dominates your soul, which is your mind, will and emotions. Again, it’s a process that takes time.
Before we get to the Bible’s definition of what spiritual maturity looks like and feels like, we need to first visit the Lord Jesus’ description and definition of spiritual immaturity. Spiritual immaturity as defined by Jesus is the condition of “always listening but never hearing and always seeing but never understanding.” Spiritual immaturity is evidence by stunted or stopped growth. He spoke of in Matthew 13:14. The spiritual condition of immaturity was prophesied by Isaiah because the Jewish people had grown cold to hearing the Word and in that heart condition of ungratefulness a dullness or hardness of heart took over and caused the Word to die within themselves and stop their perception of the New Covenant.
The Road to Spiritual Maturity: Fall on the Rock!
Fall on the rock or it will fall on you. John the Baptist said it, Jesus said it: Repent! It’s so old fashioned but it’s the truth. If we don’t repent about the culture we’ve developed inside the house of the Lord in America we’re going to lose our lamps. Many already have. Mature Christians know when they’ve walked into a church where the lamp stand was removed. There are many empty seats with their names written on them but the pastor will chase them away because he perceives something that’s usually not there. But even if they are correct in their perception, Jesus said in Matthew 12:30 if you’re not gathering you’re scattering. He also specifically told them in the parable of wheat and tares to leave the tares alone, not pluck them out. People come to church to grow spiritually through hearing the Word of God preached and interaction within the church culture. Jesus set the standards for the administration of the church culture. If we don’t abide by His standards, we suffer the consequences.
Evidence of Spiritual Maturity is Humility.
Habakuk 2:4 says:
Behold, the soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.
And Jeremiah 17:10 says:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?
We must be humble enough to accept the fact that we have a proclivity to be sinful. Our human nature gravitates to sinfulness. That’s Bible friends. To accept what the Bible says about us is the first step of humility.
To walk after spiritual maturity is to do what Jesus said to do. Do not judge one another. To be specific, He said ‘before we take the mote out of our brother’s eye, first take the beam out of our own.’ What Jesus is saying is to first deal with the issue and cast it out in our own lives before we can help our brothers and sisters in Christ deal with that same issue.
But God says in the next verse, Jeremiah 17:10:
I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give everyone man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
Notice God says in His Word that he rewards us according to our actions and not our words, not what we think of ourselves, which most people think they have a pure heart. Proverbs 16:2 says:
All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes; but the Lord weighs the spirits (the thoughts and intents of the heart).
So clearly we can deduct that where humility is evident, is where the Holy Spirit is able to convict. Many, even in the Church have walked away from a life where the Holy Spirit can convict and bring us to that next level of glory. Glory being more like Christ. We must all ask ourselves ‘when was the last time I was convicted by the Holy Spirit? Why? Because we’ve never arrived while we’re here on this earth. Nobody, no where, no how and no way will fully arrive. We should always be ready and on our way, but we won’t arrive until we’re at the wedding. When we think we’ve sniffed out every place of pride within ourselves, we’ll find more we didn’t think was there. To choose humility is to wage a constant war on pride.
If we’re humble, the Holy Spirit keeps us on the road to true sanctification, which is an ongoing process. Sanctification is that place and process of keeping ourselves set apart to Him in humility – not to be competitive toward one another and cause strife in the Church. When someone is really humble – it’s all about Jesus. It’s that simple.
Humility has the quality of being teachable. Remember, pride is one of the seven deadly sins. When the Bible defines something as deadly, it’s not just talking about deadly in our world; it’s also defining deadly in the Kingdom of God. Remember, Heaven is an environment sterile from all sin, pride included. Pride will lead us to become jealous of others around us and that jealousy manifests in deceitful ways. We become offended when others speak the Word in authority around us. We lose sight of the fact that everything we do is on transcript like a deposition. Pride is the key ingredient in goats. Pride is offended when others speak the Word with authority. Rather than be angry with someone who shares the Word, real sheep of the flock rejoice in the Word. Pride leads to jealousy and the Bible says in James that in jealousy and envy follow every evil thing. A final word on pride: it’s always brings with it humiliation.
Spiritual Growth Hurts in the Soul.
If you really want to grow up spiritually you must diligently study the subject of spiritual growth. The Bible has so much to say about it. Remember, God rewards those to diligently seek Him. That abundant life manifests for those who search for Him with all their hearts. The power will show up, it’s not a question of how, it’s a question of when you make your decision to prove yourself to Him.
Search out teaching books on the subject is a good place to start. Spiritual Man, by Watchman Nee is the best book I have found on the subject. It’s an exhaustive study and I blogged on it in Body, Soul & Spirit [https://vyzyn.org/body-soul-and-spirit/]; and Spirit, Soul & Body [https://vyzyn.org/spirit-soul-and-body/]. We have such neglect in this area in the full-gospel churches that people have become super soulical snowflakes, thinking they are spiritually mature. It is sad. The Bible never threw out practical thinking as the price to pay for seeing our circumstances clearly. “By their fruits you shall know them” is very practical. Instead, people in full-gospel churches have become prey to false teachers because they were being fed soulically and driven by what they see and lust for. It takes real spiritual maturity to avoid becoming taken in by a false prophet.
Remember what Jesus said in John 4:24:
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
Jesus described to the disciples what growth really looks like and feels like in John 15. The parable of the sower deals with the basics of spiritual growth but when Jesus taught on the vineyard in John 15 He shows us the process of spiritual growth. So we need to bring both parables into the same study in order to get the real picture of what spiritual growth looks and feels like. The parable of the sower shows us our motives are key. The motives of our hearts prove our sincerity which is the basic necessity for good soil in which the Word can grow inside us and bring our spiritual maturity. Are you following Christ for what He can do for you? Or are you following Him for what you can do for Him because you’re so grateful that He saved you from eternity in hell?
The teaching of the vineyard shows us how all these scriptures I am mentioning in this blog come together. The vineyard teaching shows us that it is through adversities in life will test our hearts and prove us that we are transformed from glory to glory into the image of His son, Jesus Christ. We become like Christ when we follow and take each adverse situation and take it to Him in prayer. We must listen for His voice and obey Him. The abundant life requires an active prayer life, being in His Word day and night before we find success in the Christian life. Remember, the growth point is where we start bearing fruit and then something happens that feels like pruning. Pruning is an event that comes on unexpectedly and puts you in a situation that you don’t understand. It challenges your trust level with Him. Does He really love you to do all that? Did it take all that, Lord to test my heart to see how much I love you?! That’s what the pruning feels like. But those who want to grow never give up on the Lord’s process because they’ve seen it before when they were babes in Christ. They saw the miracles in their own lives and know He loves them. The challenge is at the tension point: trust and obey or get angry and walk away?
Spiritual Growth Must be Constant.
Again, it’s going from glory to glory and Christ being revealed in us more and more. If you really want to grow spiritually, study Luke 8:5-18. It’s the parable of the sower and the things Jesus had to say about life knowing God and how to succeed with God. The soil is our hearts and the condition of it. The seed is the Word and that Word either brings forth fruit by growth or it lies dormant in the ground and dies. But notice what he said in Luke 8:18:
Take heed therefore how you hear: for whoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.
The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God, so first we hear the Word preached and how we listen determines our success. If our hearts are filled with wrong motives like pride, searching for significance, curing our identity crisis, filling up a void someone left in our hearts then we’re off to a bad start. If we came in through the front door, like Jesus said by falling on the rock and humbling ourselves instead of using pride to heal the wounds of life and bad choices, we would know who were are in Christ and know how much He really loves us. The search would be over. We would be off the identity crisis and searching for significance bandwagons. We’re open to Jesus healing the wounds because He’s the only true healer. He’s the only one who can fill that void and when we experience that fill it’s like nothing else we’ve ever experienced! That’s success in Christ, my friends. That’s what walking in the real truth is. It’s submitting to the authority of His Word each and every day.
God placed this world inside time and what Luke 8:18 is really saying is about our response to His Word. Timing is everything in life. How quickly we respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit is our evidence to God as to how much we truly love Him. That’s not my opinion; it’s the Word of God in Luke 8:18. Our response determines our success to how much abundant life manifests in our lives. If our focus is on the material things of this world or our accomplishments then we’ve missed the entire idea God wanted to bring us to in the abundant life He promised through His son. It’s about our relationship with Him. It’s about living, moving and having our being in Him.
If this blog has spoken to you in any way, please pray this prayer:
Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us and deliver us from evil for thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the Glory. And Father, please convict me where my priorities need an adjustment, convict me on who I spend my time with, I ask you to convict me and show me my heart as you see and know it. Please strengthen me, Father, by your Holy Spirit who raised Christ Jesus from the dead with quick and steadfast obedience to your commands. I receive your convictions, Father. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray – Amen.
Be blessed,
Laurie Walters
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