Spiritual Maturity

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a friend about spiritual maturity. A friend of his is part of a small group and they are hitting the proverbial wall and the community is somewhat stagnant. They aren’t taking risks, instead settling into the easy right answer routine. I know that feeling. I know what it’s like to reach a place where it’s no longer about the info, but something else.

And this conversation made me think. What is spiritual maturity? Is it simply a theological ascendancy to a set of beliefs. Is this what Jesus and Paul were after. Because what I have found is that theological brilliance typically leads to arrogance. And yet so much of our current small group formats are based on simple downloading the right information. And the assumption is that the right answer creates right action. And I just don’t buy that.

One of the fundamental problems I see is that we’ve relegated truth to the chalkboard, without ever taking it out on the field. It’s the right answer to learn, not the real answer to live. And in doing so we’ve created a world of theological misfits who don’t know how to practice what they preach. They know the right answer but it has very little value in the every day world because they can’t apply it. I should know because that was me for so long.

Now I’m not doubting or calling out the value of truth. It has been incredibly valuable in my life. But I recognize that at 40, I believe very differently than I did at 25 when I became a Christ follower. And at 25, I thought I had it all correct. But up until that point I had spent 20 years of my life learning the right answer, but it produced little more than a pious religiosity that was crippling me in guilt and fear.

And over time, I am beginning to realize that spiritual maturity is the capacity to love, which is founded in truth. It’s the right answer put into practice in the real world. This is why Missio Dei was so important to me. It gave me a context for the truth. It gave me a purpose other than just theological brilliance (as if) that led me to being the smarter guy in the room no one wanted to know. Because at some point, the basic answers no longer provide intellectual stimulation and what’s left is an ad nauseum, esoteric debate about the subjective. And it leads to division, which leaves the enemy laughing.

Spiritual maturity is engaging the truth. And the truth is that He loves us. He establishes us as His beloved creation. He gives us His Spirit. And with that Spirit, we can live like Jesus. That is the Good News. And living the truth is to love in a world that so desperately needs it. It’s being loved as much as it is loving people. It’s learning that I am loved and letting go of the baggage that is essentially a suitcase full of lies. It means embracing my own dignity and taking responsibility to grow into love, to meet the Holy Spirit at exactly the right moment He is calling me to.

Spiritual maturity is learning to forgive the unforgivable, not because I have to but because I need to. In forgiveness I find the love that restores my own heart as I let go of the justice that longs to come back and haunt me. In reconciliation I can participate in a larger mission of restoration than brings the best to the world, not my worst.

I long for spiritual maturity, the capacity to engage truth in love. I long to realize what God has created me to be, unencumbered by the wounds of my past. I long for the capacity to be love to the world around me. I long to be whole. That is spiritual maturity.

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