“There are many Christian people in our churches today who do not want to be taught. They object to teaching and only look to be entertained. They say as much and criticize ministers who are trying to teach them. They insist they want something from the heart, and say they cannot be bothered with doctrine – it demands too much effort on their part. They will not read solid books, therefore, but only snippets and digests. They do not believe in studying God’s Word.”(DM Lloyd-Jones on Romans 14:17, Romans)

by Elder Peter Lim

Although there’s no shortage of topics to write regarding Spiritual Maturity, I will bring this series to an end here. If you haven’t figured it out by now, pretty much all the articles here on the Beacon are designed to increase your spiritual maturity in one way or another, so I’m sure I’ll be getting the other topics that I’ve been thinking about into a Beacon article in the future.

As this quote by DM Lloyd-Jones says, many people don’t want to work hard in order to pursue spiritual maturity. Or they want to be mature without going through a difficult process of study, conviction, and refinement. Sometimes people will even express a desire to “want to want” maturity. That is, they don’t actually want maturity because they know that it’s not going to be easy to give up the things of the world and pursue Christ. I’m not talking about people who truly seek to be spiritually mature and are finding it difficult, or are experiencing some failures along the journey. I’m talking about those who claim to have been Christians for a while (or want to be one) who have simply given up hope that they can grow or the that cost is too high.

Typically these are people whose desire to change their questionable lifestyle is shallow and short-lived. They are satisfied with lack of growth or are too lazy to think deeply about holiness. They tend to question whether gray area issues are so bad because they don’t mind going toward the direction of the “sin border” rather than away from it. They get bored easily and would rather be entertained by worldly entertainment. They sometimes have doubts about their own faith and they struggle with sin regularly.

In contrast, a sign of someone who is growing in maturity is a passionate desire to grow. They are not satisfied with the level of their current personal holiness and look for ways to continue to change. This is true whether they’ve been a Christian for a short time or for decades. Presumably, those who have been a Christian longer should be more mature which ironically leads to a greater desire to mature. This desire to grow is a result of a firm understanding that the most mature of us still lack holiness by a wide margin, and our desire is to be holy as God is holy. (1 Peter 1:16) If you desire to grow in maturity and be challenged, ask someone to help keep you accountable to put this desire into action and to sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron.

It should be fairly obvious by now that the things mentioned in this series of articles are calls to a never-ending journey toward a direction, not merely a destination. Well, almost never-ending. All this maturing ends in the presence of Jesus Christ when we dwell with Him forever
in Heaven.