Charting a course to spiritual maturity with the right destination

As a church, we have been wrestling with the question "What does a person who has a growing and maturing relationship with Jesus look like"? What do you think the answer to that question is? Because, at times, it sure seems that we have it all wrong when it comes to being involved in a growing and maturing relationship with Jesus. It seems like we can end up moving the wrong way. As with any relationship, we want our relationship with Christ to grow and mature. We know that God desires us to grow in our relationship with Him. So we begin to attend church and read our Bibles and develop relationships with other Christians. And we begin to seek and search for what a "spiritually mature" Christian looks like. Where we run into trouble, however, is that we will find ourselves receiving many different addresses to the destination “spiritual maturity” from other Christians. For some Christians, the address to the destination spiritual maturity is “try harder, do better avenue”. For others, the address to the destination spiritual maturity is “know more, win doctrinal debates drive”. For others, the address to the destination spiritual maturity is “do more, because busyness equals godliness street”. And at the end of the day, as followers of Jesus, we can find ourselves lost, frustrated, confused and further away from the destination of a growing and maturing relationship than we planned. So what is the correct address to the destination of spiritual maturity? Jesus provided that answer for us in an answer to a question He was asked:

“And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' “Matthew 22:37-40 NASB

But the dilemma to this answer always seems to be "how do we measure the love we have for God?" Because we are created for relationships on both a horizontal and vertical level, we can evaluate and measure the level of love that we have for God in much the same way we measure our love for others. We can measure the level of our love for God and our spiritual maturity by looking at five aspects of our lives: our checkbook, our calendar, our contemplations, our conversations, and our circumstances. For example, by looking at my checkbook, you would be able to see what I love and value the most, because we spend money on what we are devoted to, don’t we? If you were able to look at my calendar, you would be able to see what I love and value the most, because we spend time with the things and people we are devoted to. If you were able to read my mind, you would be able to see what I love and value the most, because we think, or contemplate, about the things we are devoted to. If you were able to listen to my conversations, you would fairly quickly be able to see what I love and value the most, because our conversations are dominated by the things that we are devoted to. And if you were able to see how I responded to the difficult circumstances in my life, you would be able to see what I loved and valued the most, because we turn to and lean into the things we are devoted to in difficult circumstances, don’t we?

So we are spending our time asking the tough questions: "What do our calendars, checkbooks, contemplations, conversations, and circumstances say about what we love and are devoted to. And the great thing is that God can leverage each of the aspects of our lives to cultivate and develop and growing and maturing relationship with Him. I will be sharing with you what God is teaching us and hope that what God is teaching us will help influence and impact you.