Do you know about Spiritual Maturity and its Importance?
There is a popular mindset floating in the church today, mostly amongst the young people’s that is a direct assault to the Scriptures, call and percepts of our Lord. This mindset is that all we have to do to live out the Christian life and faith is receive Christ and we then have all that we need. There is no need to be discipled because the complete Christian life abides in “me.” Thus, once someone accepts Christ as Savior, their thinking is that I have all the resources to live out the Christian life. While others feel it is an unobtainable goal to walk the Christian life, so why bother. Both views do not believe that there is a real need to be in a Bible study or read the Word or have devotions or read good Christian literature, or have and be a mentor because,
I have nothing lacking and I do not need anyone to point out what I may be deficient in, for I am self-sufficient, Christ dwells in me and is able to pull anything out He needs from me from within me.
Now if this doesn’t to cause you to bite your tongue or cause you to shutter, something may be wrong with you too. Yes, all we need to be saved is by “Faith Alone,” but our faith does not stand alone. To grow in Christ, we need His Word, we need to learn just as this passage points out. We have to realize that it is indeed our responsibility to receive our faith and then maintain and grow our faith to live a triumphant Christian life. And yes, we are given all we need, but we have to learn, know and then apply it into our life. If we do not we will faultier greatly in life and in the faith, do not take my word for it, read Psalm 25 and the any of the Epistles!
This is what the Schaeffer Institute had found out:
...church leaders and pastors surveyed said that more than 60% of their congregational members do not have an accurate view of their personal spiritual growth. They believe they are growing, but put little to no effort into their growth. Thus, their feelings are in contradiction to fact as perceived by the pastors.
More here:
http://www.churchleadership.org/apps/articles/default.asp?articleid=44952&columnid=4545
What do you think?
posted by Richard @ 1:34 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
This is a little scary. The Church tells people that God will accept them the way they are; then they get about 15 minutes to feel good about their decision to accept Christ and all of a sudden they are told that that free gift wasn't so free after all. If the new convert had read the fine print, they would know that now they are expected to join a church (preferrably this one), attend faithfully every time the door is open, sign up for Discipleship 101, Discover Your Mission and Ministry classes, tithe, come to Wednesday night prayer meeting/Saturday morning prayer breakfast, find a small group for accountability, enroll in a Recovery program so they can be freed from their addiction to cigarettes/alcohol/drugs/porn/debt/broken marriage; get rid of the body piercings/tattoos/revealing clothing, and oh yeah, we need you to volunteer in the nursery for the next month.
If you want to fit into a church, you've got to look and act like everyone else. Whether you understand spiritual maturity or not, you're expected to demonstrate an immediate transformation if indeed your salvation was real.
What the church doesn't tell you is that there are a bunch of people struggling with the same things you brought into this relationship with Christ, but they've learned to cover and conceal. If you want to grow spiritually, you'll learn how to fake it until you make it. And if you're really serious about growing in spiritual maturity, you've got to learn Christianese.
Give me a small group of people who love Jesus and are real with one another and I'll take that journey with them. I'd rather enter eternity as a child than as a poser.
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