Spiritual Maturity

Devotion for the Week...

As Christians, we are not meant to be stagnant. We are meant to be always growing and learning, becoming more like Jesus as we mature. I love that Peter wrote, “May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2) as part of the greeting in his second letter. This is what he wished for his readers, and what God wishes for all of us.

 

As we learn more about God and how He wants us to live, which Jesus demonstrated for us, we notice more of the ways we fall short. Not because we’re doing more things wrong, but because we become more focused on trying to live His way and so we notice ways we get it wrong that may not have been obvious before. But God doesn’t want us to wallow in guilt; after all, He has already forgiven us! Instead, Peter tells us the solution, which is that we also become more aware of the grace that God extends to us, which gives us more peace since we can be confident that we are secure in Him.

 

It’s a positive feedback loop, where we grow in our knowledge of God, which causes us to recognize more of the grace we’ve been given, which makes us more mature as we aim to imitate Jesus more and more, which takes us right back to growing in our knowledge of God. Spiritual maturity doesn’t come necessarily with age, but with an intent to know God.

It’s inevitable that we all get older. The more interesting question is, are we growing in our knowledge of God?