Let’s Move on Toward Maturity 

One of our grandsons is graduating from high school this weekend. Those commencement events are often seen as being transitions into adulthood. It is a time when young people are usually expected to begin to take on greater responsibility for themselves and become more independent. It can be a pivotal time as they leave childhood things behind and move forward to college, career, or other pursuits. Some struggle with that transition, wanting to hang on to the past or afraid to face the realities that line the path which leads to maturity. Others enthusiastically face those challenges and successfully navigate the changes.

Whatever stage of life we find ourselves in, whether graduating from school or ready to commence retirement, let’s be sure that we are moving ahead toward maturity in our spiritual journey. It can be easy to get stuck in a state of spiritual immaturity. It might be that we don’t progress in knowledge and understanding beyond the basics of our faith. Or it could be that we refuse to grow in our relationship with the Lord, content with being like spiritual babies who remain weak and unable to walk with the Lord, much less go forth as soldiers to serve our King and to conquer the enemy in the name of Jesus.

The Bible encourages us to graduate from our spiritual childhood and to become more mature in our faith. Paul tells us to come “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:13-14). The Bible admonishes those who refused to grow up: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food…Therefore leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection” (Hebrews 5:12; 6:1).

It is time for some of us to start stepping up and taking greater responsibility for our spiritual wellbeing. In order to do that, we may need to set aside some childish things, in both our understanding and our behavior. We need to quit allowing ourselves to be bottle-fed those superficial soundbites of morality, self-help, and religion. Instead, we need to spend time studying God’s Word and digging deeper into discerning the will of God for us and for the world we live in. We need to move past the milk and start chewing on the meat. We need to quit relying on the faith of others and get our own feet firmly cemented into an immoveable relationship with Jesus. We need to stop toying around with sin and start pursuing a life of holiness. We need to realign our priorities, putting less emphasis on worldly pursuits and more value on the things of God.

In other words, it is time to graduate. It is time to move on to becoming the Christlike person God created you to be. It won’t be an easy road to travel at times. It will have challenges, hardships, suffering, and opposition. However, the destination will be worth the journey. As much as we might have pleasant memories of our childhood and our school years, in hindsight we wouldn’t have wanted to remain there. We would have missed so much if we had stayed in that stage of life indefinitely. Let’s not miss out on what God has in store for us in our walk with Him. Let’s keep pressing on. Keep growing. Continue to learn more about the Lord and His will. Keep becoming more like Jesus. Don’t get stuck in being a spiritual child. It is time to grow up.