
Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father grow us more and more into the likeness of his son Jesus. Father, we love you and we trust you. Help us to embrace your loving, maturing discipline in our lives. It is hard to grow, Father, and the process can often sting and be hard to embrace, but with you help we can do it! Father, in the name of your son Jesus and by the power of your Spirit, he who is alive and active within us, help us to understand what it means to be a mature Christian, one who knows your will be doing it. Let the aroma of our lives offered up as sacrifices to you be pleasing to you Father!
Your Morning Song: "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" by Chris Rice
Your Morning Scripture: Hebrews 5:12-14
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
It might be wise to ask ourselves the question, "Am I mature in the ways God wants me to be?" Or perhaps a step back, asking instead, "Do I know how God defines maturity?"
God defines Christian maturity here, in part. as being teachers, being skilled in the word of righteousness (the Bible), and diligent to practice and able to use Spirit fed/lead discernment in everyday life concerning good and evil.
And are we mature? Do we teach others, even in a limited, one on one capacity? Do we talk about God and his word with others? Are we able to discern good from evil?
Too easily and too often we view our walk with God as a simple, plain, flat picture that conveys the basic message, "saved." And we give hardly any more thought to our walk with God, and instead get lost in the day to day doings, the job, the schedule, the bills, hobbies, entertainment, etc.
And we shy away from such questions like, "Am I a mature believer?" And "Do I even understand what maturity means to God?"
What are the foundational pieces of our lives that we have a deep understanding of? What do we talk about most? What are we most interested in? What motivates us to talk to other people? What are our relationships founded on and grounded in?
Is it God and his word applied in our lives?
Or do we have no daily, functional, practical understanding of what it means to be a mature Christian?
For some of us this really should sting. It should hurt. We should feel ashamed and be deeply motivated to fall on our knees before God and, in his gracious embrace, ask for his forgiveness for not offering up our whole selves to be transformed by him. For paying lip-service to him and instead secretly worshipping our own self.
For some of us we have simply never been taught these texts, or these texts in this way. And God's definition of spiritual maturity sounds delightful! What an adventure to stride deeply into God's word and be transformed!
Our walk with God is a rich, nuanced, complex, beauty-full, wonder-full way of being that leaves no room for any other way of being.
It is not a thing that can be done in any other way than whole.
The spiritually mature delight in this stark, "either or" reality. While spiritual babies despise the cost of whole that maturity demands.
Are we spiritually mature, church? Do we look for opportunities to share and teach God's word? Not teaching from any authority of our own, but of God's authority to judge and know and command? Do we practice discernment? Do our daily lives reflect whole life commitment to obeying God's will?
A good, but scary way to get honest answers concerning our spiritual maturity, or lack thereof, is to consider... Who is following me? Do the people I influence (spouse, kids, friends, etc) model my maturity with lives obedient to God's word? Or are they babies as I am a baby, singing on Sunday and sinning on Monday? If someone does claim that I am spiritually mature, could they name a single spiritual lesson that has passed between you two beyond, "a good example in life" which is a cop-out?
This is a problem for many of us. And for many others of us, though mature, we feel the hunger for more, the joy for greater transformation and adventure.
Whichever of the two best describes you, the answer is the same. Seek our Heavenly Father's will, guided in understanding by the Spirit, so that we may know his will by doing his will, and so become more like his son Jesus.
When God teaches us something, teaches us anything, we have a choice, obey, or disobey. There is no other way, no other option. And in these moments, he will always help us, because he never commands his children without also making them able to do what he says, even if it is hard.

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