As we grow older in life, years somehow seem to shorten and New Year's Day approaches with an ever increasing tempo. The more mature we get, the more we realize that time is only relative; how we live means more than how long we live. Haply also we do not live by years, but by days. In His wisdom God does not show us all that lies ahead. So we enter a new year to live it day by day. What is past is past. Today we start anew, and what we do today will make our life for tomorrow. Chin up, shoulders straight, eyes agleam, let us salute the New Year, and each day let us follow more faithfully, more courageously, more daringly the lead of our great Captain who bids us follow Him.
William Thomson Hanzsche
Many of us treat church life like immature adolescents. From other Christians we want thrills, constant exhilaration and to have our needs met. When Christian brothers and sisters fall short of our expectations, when they are boring and imperfect and fail to meet our needs for strokes, we pout, turn away and isolate ourselves from them. Jesus calls us to mature commitment of love for his people - the very people in our fellowship!
John Wimber
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A Handbook for Christian Maturity 10 Basic Steps Series By Bill Bright Featuring biblical references, an easy to understand text, and thought provoking questions, this practical guide is excellent for both personal and group studies. Based on the 10-step course offered by Campus Crusade for Christ International, it has helped millions of people tackle tough issues such as salvation, security, temptation, understanding Scripture, answers to prayer, witnessing, and more! |
Perhaps the Spirit of God is saying to many of us today, "I want to minister through you. But before I can ever minister through you, I must minister to you." Don't despise the educational experience of your drying brook. Don't throw in the towel... Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be mature and complete. He wants to make you just like His Son.
Howard G. Hendricks
Brief Biography
Character is not built by battling and excitement alone. The harvest is not ripened by the thunderous forces of nature, but by the secret silent invisible forces. So the best qualities of our spiritual lives are matured by quietness, silence and commonplace.
A. P. Gouthey
When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable) "toward the goal of true maturity" (Rom 12:2 JBP).
Elisabeth Elliot
Elisabeth Elliot's Website
The knowledge of Christ's love for us should cause us to love Him in such a way that it is demonstrated in our attitude, conduct, and commitment to serve God. spiritual maturity is marked by spiritual knowledge being put into action.
Edward Bedore
Berean Bible Institute
Maturity doesn't come with age; it comes with acceptance of responsibility.
Ed Cole
Christian Men's Network
One of the marks of spiritual maturity is the quiet confidence that God is in control - without the need to understand why He does what He does.
Anonymous
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Intentional Disciplemaking: Cultivating Spiritual Maturity in the Local Church By Ron Bennett Cultivating a community of mature believers is essential to church growth. But how do you go about it? Offering a biblical, step-by-step strategy, Bennett helps you develop solid followers of Christ. Learn to create a climate geared toward disciplemaking, re-evaluate your outreach ministry, overcome barriers to faith, minister beyond your means, and more. 144 pages, softcover from NavPress. |
It is well to get rid of the idea that faith is a matter of spiritual heroism only for a few select spirits. There are heroes of faith, but faith is not only for heroes. It is a matter of spiritual manhood. It is a matter of maturity.
P. T. Forsythe
Superficial Christians are apt to be eccentric. Mature Christians are so near the Lord that they are not afraid of missing His guidance. They are not always trying to promote their loyalty to God by their independence from others.
A. B. Simpson
Biography and Bibliography
George Macdonald said, 'If you knew what God knows about death you would clap your listless hands', but instead I find old people in North America just buying this whole youth obsession. I think growing older is a wonderful privilege. I want to learn to glorify God in every stage of my life.
Elisabeth Elliot
Elisabeth Elliot's Website
We fail to see the place of suffering in the broader scheme of things. We fail to see that suffering is an inevitable dimension of life. Because we have lost perspective, we fail to see that unless one is willing to accept suffering properly, he or she is really refusing to continue in the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth.
Henri J. M. Nouwen
Nouwen Centre
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The Fire of Delayed Answers By Bob Sorge This book helps clarify why the answers to our prayers may be delayed and gives practical advice for walking in faith and hope until God's release comes. If we are to mature into greater dimensions of kingdom fruitfulness, then we must commit ourselves to understanding how God uses delay to refine His chosen ones. Intensely passionate and practical, this book is written from the crucible of the author's own personal crisis of delayed answers. This is not a book of platitudes but of powerful insights that have come through the fire. May your heart be enlarged and your faith expanded as you consider the great blessings extended to those who wait in God alone. |
Ingratitude denotes spiritual immaturity. Infants do not always appreciate what parents do for them. They have short memories. Their concern is not what you did for me yesterday, but what are you doing for me today. The past is meaningless and so is the future. They live for the present. Those who are mature are deeply appreciative of those who laboured in the past. They recognize those who labour during the present and provide for those who will be labouring in the future.
Anonymous
As men cherish young plants at first and fence them about with hedges to keep them from hurt, but when they are grown they remove these things and leave them to the wind and weather, so God sustains His children at first with props of inward comforts, but afterwards He exposes them to storms and winds because they are better able to bear them. Therefore let no man think himself the better because he is more free from troubles than others; it is because God sees him not fit to bear greater.
Richard Sibbes
Brief Biography and Article
A state of mind that sees God in everything is evidence of growth in grace and a thankful heart.
Charles G. Finney
Online Works and Biography
...There is a season of establishing, settling and testing, during which we must "stay put" until the new relationship gets so fixed as to become a permanent habit. It is just the same as when the surgeon sets the broken arm. He puts it in splints to keep it from vibration. So God has His spiritual splints that He wants to put upon His children and keep them quiet and unmoved until they pass the first stage of faith. It is not always easy work for us, "but the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ, after that ye have suffered awhile, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
A. B. Simpson
Biography/Bibliography
When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me.
John Wesley
Wesley Centre
One of the marks of spiritual maturity is the quiet confidence that God is in control - without the need to understand why He does what He does.
Anonymous
Maturity does not automatically come with the passage of years. Some of the people we work with may be spiritually much younger than their chronological age. A prayer I pray often is: "Lord, let me grow up, before I grow old."
John Wimber
The first mark of maturity is the ability to deal constructively with reality to face facts, to not cover up reality or call it something else, but to deal with it as it is. Mature people do not kid themselves. The second mark is, adapting quickly to change. We all experience change, whether it be physical, at work, in the family, or whatever. I am amazed at how much some of you have changed through the years while I remain exactly the same! Immature people resist change. It ma Kes them nervous. But the mark of maturity is to adapt to change because change is inevitable. The third mark is freedom from the symptoms of tension and anxiety. The worried look, the frown, the ulcers, the palpitations of the heart - come because you are upset, anxious and worried. Maturing means you have begun to see that God is in control of this world. He is working out purposes that you do not always understand, but you accept it. He will take you through the deep water, not drown you in it. Maturity means you are learning to trust. Fourth, it means to be satisfied more with giving than receiving. Some of you have recently learned that the joy of Christmas is not getting presents but giving them. To see the joy in someone else's face when they get something they either need or want. That is a sign you are growing up. You are discovering the true values of life. The fifth mark is, to relate to others with consistency, helpfulness and mutual satisfaction. Maturity is learning to get along with other people, to be a help, not a hindrance, to contribute to the solution and not to be always a part of the problem. Finally, maturity is sublimating and redirecting anger to constructive ends. Maturity is the ability to use the adrenaline that anger creates, not to lose your temper and add to the problem, but to correct a situation or to contribute to changing the nature of the difficulty.
James I (J. I.) Packer
Brief Online Interview
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