MATURITY
Maturity... A process of becoming fully developed, of growing up. We mature in different areas of our lives. We mature physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually. We all know people who mature in one area, but struggle in other areas to grow up.
Maturity also applies to many things in nature. For instance we talk about fruit becoming ripe, or fully mature. Of fully aged cheese or wine. I looked up the wine maturing process and found something very interesting. Wine is mature when its components no longer stand out as isolated entities. With maturity comes integration and harmony, It is when the flavors and components have coalesced, or grown together and become seamless.
That made me think about my walk with Jesus. In Christianity, maturity is to complete the process of growth, showing the characteristics of Jesus in our lives. My life is meant to become intertwined with His to such a degree that the two of us are seamless. In other words, you can't tell me apart from Jesus! I look like Him, smell like Him, talk like Him and walk like Him. As He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, so we too are one with the Father and the Son. That I no longer stand out as my own person! Yes, I am still Dori, but Jesus is so much a part of my life that you are able to see Him in me. We are seamlessly woven together and you see Him in me.
Is that even possible in our lifetime?
Paul thought so. He wrote in Philippians 3: 7-16 of this very thing. He said all the things that he once thought were valuable had changed. That the more he knew of Jesus and what he had done the more convinced he was that following Him was the most important thing he could do. He said, "For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him." Further on Paul states, "I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead. I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Let all you are spiritually mature agree on these things."
Maturity is the pressing on, the never quitting. It is the understanding that even in our world today that everything else is worthless when compared with the value of knowing Jesus. Paul said he was so convinced of this that he discarded everything else in his life to pursue Jesus. Paul had one of the most radical salvation experiences of anyone I know! Blinded by light, went from a killer of believers in Jesus to being one of the strongest believers recorded in the Bible. Endured torture, imprisonment, hunger, shipwreck…not just a story, but a real man who endured real things. We are so inundated with movies for entertainment, that sometimes we read the word and it doesn’t seem real to us. Those early disciples were so convinced of Jesus that they gave their lives knowing Him and to promoting his story.
Maturity also applies to many things in nature. For instance we talk about fruit becoming ripe, or fully mature. Of fully aged cheese or wine. I looked up the wine maturing process and found something very interesting. Wine is mature when its components no longer stand out as isolated entities. With maturity comes integration and harmony, It is when the flavors and components have coalesced, or grown together and become seamless.
That made me think about my walk with Jesus. In Christianity, maturity is to complete the process of growth, showing the characteristics of Jesus in our lives. My life is meant to become intertwined with His to such a degree that the two of us are seamless. In other words, you can't tell me apart from Jesus! I look like Him, smell like Him, talk like Him and walk like Him. As He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, so we too are one with the Father and the Son. That I no longer stand out as my own person! Yes, I am still Dori, but Jesus is so much a part of my life that you are able to see Him in me. We are seamlessly woven together and you see Him in me.
Is that even possible in our lifetime?
Paul thought so. He wrote in Philippians 3: 7-16 of this very thing. He said all the things that he once thought were valuable had changed. That the more he knew of Jesus and what he had done the more convinced he was that following Him was the most important thing he could do. He said, "For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him." Further on Paul states, "I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead. I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Let all you are spiritually mature agree on these things."
Maturity is the pressing on, the never quitting. It is the understanding that even in our world today that everything else is worthless when compared with the value of knowing Jesus. Paul said he was so convinced of this that he discarded everything else in his life to pursue Jesus. Paul had one of the most radical salvation experiences of anyone I know! Blinded by light, went from a killer of believers in Jesus to being one of the strongest believers recorded in the Bible. Endured torture, imprisonment, hunger, shipwreck…not just a story, but a real man who endured real things. We are so inundated with movies for entertainment, that sometimes we read the word and it doesn’t seem real to us. Those early disciples were so convinced of Jesus that they gave their lives knowing Him and to promoting his story.
The writer in Hebrews 5: 11-14 says, "You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching
others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about
God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For
someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is
right. Solid food is for those who are
mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between
right and wrong. So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ
again and again. Let us go on instead
and become mature in our understanding.
The Father’s heart is for us to grow up. To set our eyes and hearts on becoming like Him in all that we think, do and say!
Are you ready to "mature"? To become seamless with the Holy Spirit?
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