Maturing In Faith

Years ago I had an early childhood development center. One of the things that was always confusing for me was when there were parents who didn’t want their children to mature and grow up. Sometimes they struggled with weaning their child. Sometimes they would break down and cry when it was time to move from the baby room to the toddler room. One of the biggest struggles, especially if it was their last child, was to get them to potty train their child. That’s the final stage of babyhood into childhood to many. After that, their child would be more independent of them, but that’s what growing up is. The more you mature, the more you can do things on your own and take responsibility.

Let’s translate that into our Christian walk. Many of us have been saved for years, but we haven’t weaned ourselves off of milk and onto meat. Some of us are still crawling when we should be running. The Church’s responsibility is to grow you into maturity so you can take responsibility for your relationship with Christ. As we mature, it’s up to us to feed ourselves daily through reading the Bible. We have to grow our relationship through prayer and seeking God. Maturity in Christ should be the goal each of us have. The great news is there’s always room for every one of us to grow more. There’s always a deeper relationship to be had with God. There’s more to learn too, but it falls on us to want to mature and then to do the things necessary to grow.

Here are some Bible verses on maturing in the faith.

1. And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be transformed and progressively changed [as you mature spiritually] by the renewing of your mind [focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His plan and purpose for you].

Romans 12:2 AMP

2. Now, those who are mature in their faith can easily be recognized, for they don’t live to please themselves but have learned to patiently embrace others in their immaturity.

Romans 15:1 TPT

3. I press on toward the goal to win the [heavenly] prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature [pursuing spiritual perfection] should have this attitude. And if in any respect you have a different attitude, that too God will make clear to you.

Philippians 3:14-15 AMP

4. So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk. You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God.

1 Peter 2:1-3 MSG

5. Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13 NLT

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash