Saturday, July 14, 2012

Playing Grownup


I look at myself in a mirror, and I see an adult male with gray hair.  I will be 61 years old soon, and I think I look pretty good for my age.  I am an adult.  I have served in the U.S. Navy, gone to college, married, help raise three daughters and now have eight grandchildren.  I think I qualify to be called an adult.

I do wonder, however, what God sees when He looks at me.  He doesn’t care as much about how I look on the outside.  God looks at me and sees my true spiritual maturity.  Do I look like a small child wearing my parents clothing and playing as an adult.  Am I still a child who needs spiritual milk?  Does He have to change spiritual diapers on me because I have soiled myself with sin again?  What does He see?

He doesn’t care about my resume of jobs, schooling, or family.  He looks upon my heart and sees how close I am to being like Christ.  Jesus is the  only one I am to compare myself to.  It would be easier to compare my spiritual maturity to Billy Graham.  I have a long long ways to go.

The early church had people who played at being mature Christians. In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira tried to lied and tried to fool people into thinking they were mature.  They found out that God knows their hearts, and all that they do.  Those were days when depending on someone to be a strong, mature Christian could get you arrested and killed if it turned out they were still children.  Ananias and Sapphira died because of their deception.

How dangerous is it to depend on your maturity?  In the United States, we have a lot of people playing spiritual grownup.  The result is slow growth of those who are Christians and very little growth in numbers resulting from evangelism. In other countries, there might be persecution, and you need to grow quickly or Christianity could die out.  No matter where you are, God needs you to grow.  Stop your childish ways.  Be willing to sacrifice that milk and search for God’s meat.  Thankfully, God will keep working to make us  mature Christians.  We just need to trust Him and follow His leading.
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” Philippians 1:6
Photo Credit: In Daddy's shoes by carrier

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