UNDERSTANDING SPIRITUAL MATURITY
(First part)
Memory verse (Ephesians 4: 13) “ Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ”
We need to understand the spiritual dynamics of the new creation, i.e. the spirit man. And one of the dynamics of the spirit man is the spiritual growth. Our spirits are born the day we accept Christ into our lives, i.e. receive God’s kind of life, eternal life. But getting born again is not the end of the story; it’s the beginning of a spiritual journey of growth. Spiritual growth is similar to physical growth. We all need the Holy Spirit to open our spiritual eyes to understand the process of our spiritual development.
Paul said that when he was a child he spoke as a child, he thought as a child but when he became a man (mature), he left the childish things (1Cor13: 11). The level of your spiritual maturity determines your motives, behaviors and action and your understanding. The quality of your life also depends on the level of your spiritual maturity. How you handle issues of life like stress, problems, success depends on your spiritual level of development. Any change in your spiritual condition will be reflected in your behaviors, thoughts, speech etc. So spiritual maturity is a vital responsibility of every child of God. Much of the crises we see in the church, families, finances etc have their roots in the spiritual levels of those dear saints. Being careless about your spiritual development can be very costly to you as a believer (Gal4: 1). Spiritual lack of development keeps you in slavery and bondage. In fact Jesus admonished the Jews who believed in Him that they had to be committed to his word if they wanted to enjoy permanent freedom (Jn 8:31-32). Lack of spiritual growth denies many Christians the blessings Jesus died to give them. All heavenly blessings are ours, but until we reach certain levels of spiritual maturity we can’t walk in the reality of many blessings that are ours in Christ.
In this week’s teaching we want to start on a journey of spiritual maturity. There are five stages of spiritual development: (i) Spiritual babies (ii) Spiritual young children, (iii) Spiritual young men (IV) Spiritual sons (v) Spiritual fathers. As we study these levels of spiritual development, find your level and begin to work with the Holy Sprit to help you go to the next level.
Tomorrow’s subject: “ Spiritual babies”
