bible and theology on Maturity

Maturity is the ability to joyfully live in an imperfect world.

Maturity comes from obedience, not necessarily from age.

Spiritual maturity is measured in terms of persevering faith, not perfect behavior.

Compassion is expressed in gentleness. When I think of persons I know who model for me the depths of spiritual life, I am struck by their gentleness. Their eyes communicate the residue of solitary bat...

The clergy profession is fundamentally self-defeating. Its stated purpose is to nurture spiritual maturity in the church - a valuable goal. In actuality, however; it accomplishes the opposite by nurtu...

I often found myself preferring the company of people outside my congregation, men and women who did not follow Jesus. Or worse, preferring the company of my sovereign self. But soon I found that my p...

An empty-nester friend of mine was recently reflecting on the long days at home with a growing family. “You just gotta keep slinging chow,” she said with a laugh. I laughed too . . . but not quite as ...

Trials come to prove and improve us.

The key to maturity is time and community. Discernment and godly wisdom develop in a community that spans generations. The church is called to be this place where the [God's] Spirit uses normal pa...

Good people will mirror goodness in us, which is why we love them so much, Not so mature people will mirror their own unlived and confused life unto us, which is why they confuse and confound us so mu...

I long to put the experience of fifty years at once into your young lives, to give you at once the key to that treasure chamber every gem of which has cost me tears and struggles and prayers, but you ...

I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weakness…. What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, how crabbed soever, are our best friends. They are n...

My Lord Jesus can hew heaven out of worse timber than I am.

Sanctification is a process. Basically, the word sanctified means “set apart.” The term saint comes from the same root and means “a set-apart one” to the Lord. Another word with the same meaning is ho...

The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.

I believe in Christ and confess him not like some child; my hosanna has passed through an enormous furnace of doubt.

Spiritual maturity is not reached by the passing of the years, but by obedience to the will of God.

Christian maturity is not indicated by the infrequency of temptation but by the infrequency of succumbing to temptation.

Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.

To me, growing into spiritual maturity is becoming less self-conscious and more God-conscious.

In my own pastoral and personal Christian experience, I can say that I’ve never known a man or woman who came to spiritual maturity except through discipline. Godliness comes through discipline.

One of the truest tests of spiritual maturity is seeing the miraculous in the monotonous.

The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.

Without transformation, you can assume you're at a high moral, spiritual level just because you call yourself Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic. I think my great disappointment as a priest has bee...

To novices it is a beginning; to those who are advancing, an increase; to those who are concluding, a confirmation.

The author Oscar Wilde once remarked that by the age of forty everyone has the face they deserve. This is a truly profound, if painful, truth. But it really applies to the “within” expressed by the fa...

There is nothing that more tends to strengthen the faith of the young believer than to hear the veteran Christian, covered with scars from the battle, testifying that the service of his Master is a ha...

Becoming mature Christians will require the sovereign work of God. Only God can save and sanctify. Still, God uses men and means. Certainly we as parents must seek to bring our children to Jesus Chris...

The devastating power of wildfires has never been more apparent as their intensity, size, and frequency has increased dramatically over the last few years in the United States (and elsewhere), causing...