Where do I Stand in God’s Eyes?
What is maturity? Something we all tend to fear that we lack! For years, I was convinced that I was a spiritual failure, even though I gave myself many pep-talks to convince myself otherwise. Even for the first several years as a teacher at the New York School of the Bible, out of a deep sense of shame, I was afraid to be real and transparent, lest others find out the truth about me.
Where and who should we be in the Lord? What progress should we be making? In this climate of spiritual uncertainty, we become obsessed with ourselves and fail to be transparent with others, burying our secrets, where they fester in darkest, intensifying our sense of shame and isolation. This problem is compounded by the fact that without a clear standard to measure spiritual maturity, our minds go wild in this absence of certainty. Pollster George Barna reports about this confusion:
People aspire to be spiritually mature, but they do not know what it means. Pastors want to guide others on the path to spiritual wholeness, but they are often not clearly defining the goals or the outcomes of that process. http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/264-many-churchgoers-and-faith-leaders-struggle-to-define-spiritual-maturity
In the midst of our confusion and uncertainty, we tend to regard spirituality as something that can be seen, measured, and compared to the performance of others. Barna continues:
One of the widely embraced notions about spiritual health is that it means “trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible” – 81% of self-identified Christians endorsed this statement, and a majority agreed strongly (53%). Even among those individuals defined by their belief that salvation is not earned through “good works,” four out of five born again Christians concurred that spiritual maturity is “trying hard to follow the rules.”
Below, I hope to Scripturally define what maturity is all about and, in doing so, to comfort believers that Christ is guiding them in the right direction. When we are confident of this, we are freed to take our anxious eyes off ourselves and place them upon our only true hope, our Savior. This then will enable us to be transparent, and to have a good hearty laugh at ourselves.
First of all, maturity is a gift! It has to be so. True maturity is no more possible for us than is lifting ourselves off the ground by pulling up our legs. Consequently, Jesus taught that we are not able to do anything of real substance (John 15:4-5; 2 Cor. 3:5). Instead, we are His workmanship (Eph. 2:10). He provides the growth (Eph. 4:16). He leads us in paths of righteousness (Psalm 23). Therefore, every good thing we have comes from Him (1 Cor. 4:7; James 1:17), and we have to give Him the credit even for our efforts and accomplishments (1 Cor. 15:10).
Knowing these things is liberating! It gives me the freedom to not obsess about my failures and limitations and to know that it’s not about me; it’s about Him (Rom. 5:8-10). It also reassures me that if I don’t see the healings or victories that I so crave, I know it’s just a matter of time. This is because it doesn’t depend on me but on Him! This understanding also allows me to be patient and encouraging in regards to others.
How then does God grow us? By humbling us, by breaking our pride and self-trust—anything that would encourage us to take credit for His provisions! Humility must precede honor (Proverbs 15:33). He must first humble us before He exalts us (Luke 18:14). Consequently, it’s those who see their poverty of spirit who are blessed (Matthew 5:3). Paradoxically, it’s the weak who are actually strong, because in our neediness we are more amenable to receive God’s blessings (2 Cor. 12:9-10; Isaiah 66:1-2) without then thinking “Well, I deserved them!”
However, we can’t simply make ourselves humble. We are too blinded (Jer. 17:9) addicted to thinking well of ourselves and trusting ourselves. Our Lord must first open our eyes to our true status. He did this for Israel by constantly showing them their inability to handle their own lives:
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 8:2-3).
He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you (Deut. 8:16).
Humility isn’t forged in a vacuum by experience alone. The Word of God must test us to show us that we aren’t the faithful, spiritual people we always thought we were. How does the Word accomplish this? It tells us what to do and what not to do and then shows us how we’ve failed and how we need to depend on God for His mercy (Romans 3:19-20). In light of this, failure is a good thing, chastening is an act of mercy (Hebrews 12:5-11), and brokenness is a doorway to blessing (Psalm 34:17-18). They instruct us that we are sinners in need of a Savior—the very thing our Lord wants us to understand (Psalm 51:6). When we fail and are humbled, it feels like we’re going backwards and that we can’t live up to God’s expectations. But these are the first stirrings of humility that lead us into the inner presence of God (Matthew 5:3-8). This awareness teaches us that He deserves all the praise and thanksgiving, and we deserve none of it—as it truly should be! It also reassures us that we are going in the right direction—the road of self-despair, the road that gives us the very angle to perceive the glory of God. Humility opens the door to wisdom. Its road, however, goes through the valley of the shadow of death, death to self.
But please understand that this brokenness will not be achieved until we place God above all else in our lives and abide in His Word as we have been instructed to do (John 15:10). And this is something we will do if we have His gift of faith. If I have faith in my doctor, I will take the medicine she prescribes. If instead I toss it out, I didn’t really have faith in her. Faith therefore is measured by obedience. If you find that you don’t have faith, just ask. He will not deny such a request (Matthew 7:9-11).
It is only as I follow the Word in faith that I will grow (1 Peter 2:2; Romans 12:2; 2 Peter 1:3-4; Psalm 1). But what if God is not first in my life? Then you will harden your heart against your convicting conscience and run from Him. In this state, it is not possible to gaze upon God in a way that transforms us (2 Cor. 3:18). You must repent (and keep on repenting if necessary), knowing that you will be received (John 6:37), forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9).
But what if the pull of the world is so great that I can’t put God first in my life? By yourself, you can’t, but He can. Just continue to ask, and He will answer (it’s according to His will), although perhaps not according to our time schedule.
Without humbling, we will never be weaned from self-trust and learn to place our trust in God alone (Psalm 62). We will never learn how to abide in His transforming Word (2 Thess. 2:13). It’s like the hiker who had fallen off a cliff and was clinging to a vine crying out for help. A voice answered, “Just let go my son, and I, God, will catch you!” He then cried even louder, “Is there anyone else there to help me?” We will not learn to trust God until we exhaust all other options.
We usually think about spiritual maturity in terms of acting spiritually. Although our behavior (ultimately, walking in love) is a good and necessary indication of maturity, before we can even think about outward fruits, the soil must first be prepared. Seeds will not take root on hardened soil. Without the preparation of the soil, good works will merely make us into self-righteous Pharisees and programs will make us into arrogant bureaucrats. Brokenness is the fertile soil of fruit-bearing. Its fruit is repentance.
This understanding is liberating. It reassures me that although I might be failing to love my brother as I ought, the fact that I am broken, repentant, and am crying out for the Lord’s help in this regard assures me that the Lord is at work in me. The natural man cannot receive this understanding (1 Cor. 2:14).
It might seem that we are going in the wrong direction, but we are actually learning to place ourselves in His arms alone (Psalm 62), and this is the way it must be! The road to death is the road to maturity.
Likewise, before we can truly act spiritually, we have to know what spiritual maturity is all about. We have to become cognizant of the depth of our own sins. We can labor for the church 70 hours a week. We can sacrifice ourselves for righteous causes, but if this isn’t built upon the 1st commandment of loving God, it is all for naught (1 Cor. 13:1-6). Clearly, love isn’t primarily a matter of externals. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Our Lord must humble us by showing us that many of the “good” things we do, we do to be seen by men or to convince ourselves that we are a superior person. Of course, these things are antithetical to the will of God and must be exposed. Although we will continue to struggle against these impulses (Gal 5:17), the repentance of faith is the victory (1 John 5:4), not sinlessness.
How then do we love God? Well, we keep His commandments (1 John 5:2), but it’s far more than this. Jesus castigated the religious leadership for not having the love of God in their hearts (John 5:42). Indeed, love is a verb and so it must be acted upon, but it’s also a predisposition of the heart. We therefore must be born again. Jesus informed them that they couldn’t love God because their heart was self-satisfied, not by the love they had received from God, but by the adoration they had received from men (John 5:44).
You may feel that your heart is cold to loving God, and that this is above your ability to change. You’re right. You can’t change it, but God can. Repent and cry out for His help. He has never turned away from a repentant sinner. Growth is a process, sometimes long and painful, and fruit can only be borne in its appropriate season.
But I must return to the Word of God. For a season, God has given us teachers and pastors, even though, in the most ultimate sense, He has ordained equality for His children (Eph 3:28). The reason for this is that we must be established in His Word before all else. Maturity cannot be otherwise. Maturity is not a matter of being above the painful temptations of life or even above failure. This is something that just isn’t attainable in this life. Instead, it’s fundamentally about embracing and internalizing His Word:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth [of Scripture] in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (Ephes. 4:14-16).
Before I was established in the Word and in the confidence that it’s all about Him (Gal. 2:20), I was vulnerable to every doubt, obsession, and guilty feeling. I had no defense against them. If things were going well, I felt that I was OK and that God was on my side. But when things weren’t, I crumbled, doubted God and vainly looked to myself for the answers.
It’s the Word that brings us into relationship with Christ, and it’s the Word that nurtures this relationship, rightly connecting us to Him through whom we receive growth. Consequently, when we have Christ, we have everything (Col. 2:9-10; 1 Cor. 3:21-23). Knowing this gives me the confidence that my life is fully in His hands. I don’t have to worry that I’m missing out on something—some new therapy or way to be self-actualized. I’ve got it all, because I’ve got Him! Even if I die, I go to be with Him who loves me with a love that goes beyond anything I can conceive (Eph. 3:17-20). I’m safe, because He keeps me safe. This has given me a freedom to look beyond my own circumstances to the needs of others. It has also given me the freedom to face my own failures and inadequacies. This is because it’s no longer about my righteousness but His! It’s out of this understanding that goods deeds are born (Titus 3:3-8).
Please, dear struggler, know that God is faithful and that He doesn’t turn away any who come to Him (John 6:37). I still struggle intensely with the sin within, as we all do, but I’ve learned where to turn for the answers, and this has made all the difference.
What is maturity? Something we all tend to fear that we lack! For years, I was convinced that I was a spiritual failure, even though I gave myself many pep-talks to convince myself otherwise. Even for the first several years as a teacher at the New York School of the Bible, out of a deep sense of shame, I was afraid to be real and transparent, lest others find out the truth about me.
Where and who should we be in the Lord? What progress should we be making? In this climate of spiritual uncertainty, we become obsessed with ourselves and fail to be transparent with others, burying our secrets, where they fester in darkest, intensifying our sense of shame and isolation. This problem is compounded by the fact that without a clear standard to measure spiritual maturity, our minds go wild in this absence of certainty. Pollster George Barna reports about this confusion:
People aspire to be spiritually mature, but they do not know what it means. Pastors want to guide others on the path to spiritual wholeness, but they are often not clearly defining the goals or the outcomes of that process. http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/264-many-churchgoers-and-faith-leaders-struggle-to-define-spiritual-maturity
In the midst of our confusion and uncertainty, we tend to regard spirituality as something that can be seen, measured, and compared to the performance of others. Barna continues:
One of the widely embraced notions about spiritual health is that it means “trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible” – 81% of self-identified Christians endorsed this statement, and a majority agreed strongly (53%). Even among those individuals defined by their belief that salvation is not earned through “good works,” four out of five born again Christians concurred that spiritual maturity is “trying hard to follow the rules.”
Below, I hope to Scripturally define what maturity is all about and, in doing so, to comfort believers that Christ is guiding them in the right direction. When we are confident of this, we are freed to take our anxious eyes off ourselves and place them upon our only true hope, our Savior. This then will enable us to be transparent, and to have a good hearty laugh at ourselves.
First of all, maturity is a gift! It has to be so. True maturity is no more possible for us than is lifting ourselves off the ground by pulling up our legs. Consequently, Jesus taught that we are not able to do anything of real substance (John 15:4-5; 2 Cor. 3:5). Instead, we are His workmanship (Eph. 2:10). He provides the growth (Eph. 4:16). He leads us in paths of righteousness (Psalm 23). Therefore, every good thing we have comes from Him (1 Cor. 4:7; James 1:17), and we have to give Him the credit even for our efforts and accomplishments (1 Cor. 15:10).
Knowing these things is liberating! It gives me the freedom to not obsess about my failures and limitations and to know that it’s not about me; it’s about Him (Rom. 5:8-10). It also reassures me that if I don’t see the healings or victories that I so crave, I know it’s just a matter of time. This is because it doesn’t depend on me but on Him! This understanding also allows me to be patient and encouraging in regards to others.
How then does God grow us? By humbling us, by breaking our pride and self-trust—anything that would encourage us to take credit for His provisions! Humility must precede honor (Proverbs 15:33). He must first humble us before He exalts us (Luke 18:14). Consequently, it’s those who see their poverty of spirit who are blessed (Matthew 5:3). Paradoxically, it’s the weak who are actually strong, because in our neediness we are more amenable to receive God’s blessings (2 Cor. 12:9-10; Isaiah 66:1-2) without then thinking “Well, I deserved them!”
However, we can’t simply make ourselves humble. We are too blinded (Jer. 17:9) addicted to thinking well of ourselves and trusting ourselves. Our Lord must first open our eyes to our true status. He did this for Israel by constantly showing them their inability to handle their own lives:
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 8:2-3).
He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you (Deut. 8:16).
Humility isn’t forged in a vacuum by experience alone. The Word of God must test us to show us that we aren’t the faithful, spiritual people we always thought we were. How does the Word accomplish this? It tells us what to do and what not to do and then shows us how we’ve failed and how we need to depend on God for His mercy (Romans 3:19-20). In light of this, failure is a good thing, chastening is an act of mercy (Hebrews 12:5-11), and brokenness is a doorway to blessing (Psalm 34:17-18). They instruct us that we are sinners in need of a Savior—the very thing our Lord wants us to understand (Psalm 51:6). When we fail and are humbled, it feels like we’re going backwards and that we can’t live up to God’s expectations. But these are the first stirrings of humility that lead us into the inner presence of God (Matthew 5:3-8). This awareness teaches us that He deserves all the praise and thanksgiving, and we deserve none of it—as it truly should be! It also reassures us that we are going in the right direction—the road of self-despair, the road that gives us the very angle to perceive the glory of God. Humility opens the door to wisdom. Its road, however, goes through the valley of the shadow of death, death to self.
But please understand that this brokenness will not be achieved until we place God above all else in our lives and abide in His Word as we have been instructed to do (John 15:10). And this is something we will do if we have His gift of faith. If I have faith in my doctor, I will take the medicine she prescribes. If instead I toss it out, I didn’t really have faith in her. Faith therefore is measured by obedience. If you find that you don’t have faith, just ask. He will not deny such a request (Matthew 7:9-11).
It is only as I follow the Word in faith that I will grow (1 Peter 2:2; Romans 12:2; 2 Peter 1:3-4; Psalm 1). But what if God is not first in my life? Then you will harden your heart against your convicting conscience and run from Him. In this state, it is not possible to gaze upon God in a way that transforms us (2 Cor. 3:18). You must repent (and keep on repenting if necessary), knowing that you will be received (John 6:37), forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9).
But what if the pull of the world is so great that I can’t put God first in my life? By yourself, you can’t, but He can. Just continue to ask, and He will answer (it’s according to His will), although perhaps not according to our time schedule.
Without humbling, we will never be weaned from self-trust and learn to place our trust in God alone (Psalm 62). We will never learn how to abide in His transforming Word (2 Thess. 2:13). It’s like the hiker who had fallen off a cliff and was clinging to a vine crying out for help. A voice answered, “Just let go my son, and I, God, will catch you!” He then cried even louder, “Is there anyone else there to help me?” We will not learn to trust God until we exhaust all other options.
We usually think about spiritual maturity in terms of acting spiritually. Although our behavior (ultimately, walking in love) is a good and necessary indication of maturity, before we can even think about outward fruits, the soil must first be prepared. Seeds will not take root on hardened soil. Without the preparation of the soil, good works will merely make us into self-righteous Pharisees and programs will make us into arrogant bureaucrats. Brokenness is the fertile soil of fruit-bearing. Its fruit is repentance.
This understanding is liberating. It reassures me that although I might be failing to love my brother as I ought, the fact that I am broken, repentant, and am crying out for the Lord’s help in this regard assures me that the Lord is at work in me. The natural man cannot receive this understanding (1 Cor. 2:14).
It might seem that we are going in the wrong direction, but we are actually learning to place ourselves in His arms alone (Psalm 62), and this is the way it must be! The road to death is the road to maturity.
Likewise, before we can truly act spiritually, we have to know what spiritual maturity is all about. We have to become cognizant of the depth of our own sins. We can labor for the church 70 hours a week. We can sacrifice ourselves for righteous causes, but if this isn’t built upon the 1st commandment of loving God, it is all for naught (1 Cor. 13:1-6). Clearly, love isn’t primarily a matter of externals. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Our Lord must humble us by showing us that many of the “good” things we do, we do to be seen by men or to convince ourselves that we are a superior person. Of course, these things are antithetical to the will of God and must be exposed. Although we will continue to struggle against these impulses (Gal 5:17), the repentance of faith is the victory (1 John 5:4), not sinlessness.
How then do we love God? Well, we keep His commandments (1 John 5:2), but it’s far more than this. Jesus castigated the religious leadership for not having the love of God in their hearts (John 5:42). Indeed, love is a verb and so it must be acted upon, but it’s also a predisposition of the heart. We therefore must be born again. Jesus informed them that they couldn’t love God because their heart was self-satisfied, not by the love they had received from God, but by the adoration they had received from men (John 5:44).
You may feel that your heart is cold to loving God, and that this is above your ability to change. You’re right. You can’t change it, but God can. Repent and cry out for His help. He has never turned away from a repentant sinner. Growth is a process, sometimes long and painful, and fruit can only be borne in its appropriate season.
But I must return to the Word of God. For a season, God has given us teachers and pastors, even though, in the most ultimate sense, He has ordained equality for His children (Eph 3:28). The reason for this is that we must be established in His Word before all else. Maturity cannot be otherwise. Maturity is not a matter of being above the painful temptations of life or even above failure. This is something that just isn’t attainable in this life. Instead, it’s fundamentally about embracing and internalizing His Word:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth [of Scripture] in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (Ephes. 4:14-16).
Before I was established in the Word and in the confidence that it’s all about Him (Gal. 2:20), I was vulnerable to every doubt, obsession, and guilty feeling. I had no defense against them. If things were going well, I felt that I was OK and that God was on my side. But when things weren’t, I crumbled, doubted God and vainly looked to myself for the answers.
It’s the Word that brings us into relationship with Christ, and it’s the Word that nurtures this relationship, rightly connecting us to Him through whom we receive growth. Consequently, when we have Christ, we have everything (Col. 2:9-10; 1 Cor. 3:21-23). Knowing this gives me the confidence that my life is fully in His hands. I don’t have to worry that I’m missing out on something—some new therapy or way to be self-actualized. I’ve got it all, because I’ve got Him! Even if I die, I go to be with Him who loves me with a love that goes beyond anything I can conceive (Eph. 3:17-20). I’m safe, because He keeps me safe. This has given me a freedom to look beyond my own circumstances to the needs of others. It has also given me the freedom to face my own failures and inadequacies. This is because it’s no longer about my righteousness but His! It’s out of this understanding that goods deeds are born (Titus 3:3-8).
Please, dear struggler, know that God is faithful and that He doesn’t turn away any who come to Him (John 6:37). I still struggle intensely with the sin within, as we all do, but I’ve learned where to turn for the answers, and this has made all the difference.
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From Daniel Mann:
I recently responded to the blog of atheist and scientist Massimo Pigliucci. He claimed that if the Bible is truly from God, then God would have given us a foretaste of future scientific discoveries:
“Many religious people since Thomas Aquinas actually want to argue that their beliefs are also rational, that there is no contradiction between the book of nature and those of scripture. If so, then they need to answer Sagan’s question about why it is that the so-called holy books don’t tell us anything at all about how the universe really is.” www.naturallyspeaking.blogspot.com.
Here’s part of my response:
Even though it doesn’t seem to be Christ’s first concern to provide previews of future scientific discoveries, Scripture nevertheless condescends to provide this very thing, contrary to your assertion otherwise. Here is a small sampling:
1. Scripture claims that the universe was created, rather than having existed eternally, as the atheist had supposed.
2. Genesis 1:14 states that the “lights in the expanse of the sky… [would] serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years.” Indeed, science has subsequently found that the movements of the stars are so regular that they do serve as “signs” and markers. While the Bible predicted this, naturalism would not predict such a thing in view of an expanding universe.
3. Hebrews 11:3 claims that what we see had not been made “out of what was visible.”
4. Jeremiah 33:25 states that God accomplishes His purposes through “fixed laws of heaven and earth.” Although science demonstrated that phenomena operated according to laws, the Bible long before posited the operation of the God’s laws. (Also Job 38:33)
5. Scripture also predated science in its understanding of the water cycle. Job 36:27 states "He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams.” Amos 9:6 states that God “calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land.”
6. Scripture also demonstrates an awareness of dinosaurs. One evidence of this comes from Psalm 74:14: “It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert.”
7. While you claim that Scripture is unaware of the vastness of the universe, Jeremiah 33:22 states, “I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore." (Also Job 11:7-8; 22:12)
Scripture is also aware of a round earth and an expanding universe. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in (Isaiah 40:22; 42:5).
9. Scripture claims that the earth isn’t flat or rests on the back of a huge turtle, but instead it rests on nothing (Job 26:7).
You conclude that,
“The various gods people worship are simply far too small for the universe we actually inhabit, which is no surprise once we accept the rather obvious truth that it is us who made the gods in our image, not the other way around.”
On the contrary, what can be greater than the God of the Bible! If our omniscient, omnipotent God is “too small” to explain our universe, what then can? Are you suggesting that your natural, unintelligent forces are adequate to explain the origin of life, DNA, the cell, consciousness, freewill, the unchanging laws, the fine-tuning of the universe, and the existence of moral absolutes?
