January 03, 2015
by Pastor Chuck SwindollScriptures: Ephesians 4:14–15
To be mature is to be fully developed, complete, and "grown up." Becoming mature is a process of consistently moving toward emotional and spiritual adulthood. In that process we leave childish and adolescent habits and adopt a lifestyle where we are fully responsible for our own decisions, motives, actions, and consequences.
To be mature is to be fully developed, complete, and "grown up." Becoming mature is a process of consistently moving toward emotional and spiritual adulthood. In that process we leave childish and adolescent habits and adopt a lifestyle where we are fully responsible for our own decisions, motives, actions, and consequences.
I heard someone say recently that maturity is developing and discerning competence as to how to live appropriately and to change rightly. In a word, it is stability.
We never "arrive." We are always in the process of moving toward that objective. I have also observed that when maturity is taking place, balance replaces extremes and a seasoned confidence replaces uneasy feelings of insecurity. Good choices replace wrong ones.
Do you have these marks of maturity:
- Concern for others that outweighs personal concerns
- Detection of the presence of evil before it's obvious
- Self discipline
- Compassion and involvement
- Tempered emotions
- Consistently growing in God's Word
How do your "marks" stand up? Will you work on improving them
before the next scoring period?