Pressing On To Maturity

My Journey of Faith Part 9

Baptizing my son in Israel in the Jordon river was one of the pleasant parts of being a dad.

Pressing on to Maturity Means Filled with the Knowledge of God's Will

According to Colossians 1:10, the purpose of being filled with the knowledge of God's will is that "we will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."

After being reborn in 1967, I experienced six years without discipleship in the Christian faith, then in sin and repentance, I was broken far worse than the first time around. During the years in Brooklyn and Castile, New York, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, and Maryland, trials persisted, but thankfully to God, my learning never stopped.

Pressing on to Maturity Can Be Through Discipline or Chastizement

Discipline is self-inflicted. When Hudson Taylor decided to be a missionary in China, he first moved to the worst part of London to learn to live with fear. We can choose affliction for Christ's sake or seek the easy life, which will surely bring the chastening hand of a loving heavenly Father.

I remember the day standing in my laundry room like it was today. "I'm done with being chastised," I said to God. Whatever you want, I'll do it. I could no longer take being brought behind the barn to be chastened for my stubborn and rebellious spirit. "Do with me what you will." I was Moses at the burning bush; or Jacob had learned that you can't win wrestling with God. I will tell you the most significant change in my heart after reaching an important milestone in my spiritual growth: theory becomes practice.

Passing on to Maturity Translates Theory into Practice

I have attended churches where members for fifty-plus years could not answer what I now consider to be the basics of the Christian faith. Can you explain why that is? I will make a general statement; if it's not true of you, I apologize. New Testament learning is not meant for the classroom by teachers of special calling to learners with little to no calling. No calling, no practical knowledge. Sit in church long enough, and you will see many people newly saved on fire for Christ, but it never takes too long for them to be doused with lukewarm water.

Grace is a word that is underappreciated by part of the Christian community. At the end of the '70s, I made a severe blunder and bought into the lie as prescribed by of all people John Wesley. The damage done by disagreements in the body of Christ is not only division but, more importantly, the introduction of self-effort. Christianity turns rebellious sinners into a channel of God's will, character, and ways for His glory. By exercising so-called free will, human effort can never accomplish divine and lofty goals.

While in Israel with my son, I prayed for rain on Mount Carmel and it rained. Where Elijah faced the false prophets of his day.

Free will opens the door for setting aside divine power passing through the repentant, broken, enlightened sinners by the grace of God. Instead, human effort, "knowledge," wisdom, creativity, and all such substitutes for God are used, and divinely inspired prayer is laid to rest. Apostolic writers and those who knew them throughout the New Testament proclaim Christ without human effort attached.

Pressing on to Maturity Means Crucified with Christ

Before becoming unstuck in the demonic lies that captivate so many of God's people today, I, too, felt prey because of my loyalty to my teachers in Bible School. Even during those years, however, I would find myself arguing for "free will" to a point and then sounding confused, finishing with, "Free will after all is just a fantasy." In the '90s, I began studying all the harder, with a renewed passion for Christ and the truth that is Him.

Notice how Christ overshadows any human part in salvation. This passage is an example of the New Testament Gospel. "For in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision (our separation by) of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross" (Colossians 2:11-14; emphasis added).

These elements of our salvation that belong to God alone in Christ are not contingent upon our "free will" decision as if God can do nothing apart from it. Such thinking is heresy, and worse, it is crippling to God's awareness and the filling of the Holy Spirit in truth. After being given authority to heal the sick and cast out demons, the disciples witnessed probably 15 to 20,000 people, including women and children, get fed with five loaves and two fish. However, we are told in Mark 6:49-52, "But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately, He spoke with them and said to them, "Take courage; it is I; do not be afraid." Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped, and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.'

I have experienced such hardness of heart, and I believe all Christians do, to one extent or another, whether they become aware of it or not. The Bible was given to us for our learning, but such stories become meaningless if these experiences stopped with the disciples. There are only twelve Apostles, so I do not mean to say anything different. However, hardness of heart was not only experienced by them, and the state of today's church in America, for those who are aware of it, proves what I write is so.

Hebrews 6:1, "Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God." Pressing on to maturity means moving on from the basics of salvation to honesty and transparency about our struggles and the power of our new identity in Christ that gives us increasing overcoming power not to sin. Pressing on to maturity means seeing ourselves as Jesus does and not how we prefer to see ourselves.