Seed Thought for this Week Sent weekly to over 100,000 Christian families and growing. Spitual Maturity is not Perfection As the people of faith, we should find comfort that the goal is spiritual maturity and not perfection or anything near it. In the book of Mathew, Jesus makes this point when he speaks about spiritual maturity, in that, some will bear a hundred-fold, some sixty, and some thirty. This verse speaks to different levels of spiritual maturity and that even the thirty-fold are persons of faith and sincerity. And to those who might seem to think they are spiritually mature; less we are lifted up with our inflated perception of spiritual progress, or enamored by what seems to be the spiritual maturity of others, we should know that even the hundred-fold Christian mentioned in Mathew, in whom there is scarcely one in a thousand, are all wanting because even the best of us are stained with imperfection. Yet, we are called to strive to be the best we can be although never close to living up to our own standards in thought and action. As people of faith we might live recklessly for a while, but God loves us too much for us to go on like that forever. God will not leave his people alone. God will check in on us. He will not allow us to live life unchecked. At first we might deny that anything is wrong. But it catches up to us; sometimes it takes days, weeks, months, or years. We eventually feel guilty. We feel regret. Our hearts and conscience is pricked. We feel ashamed. This is how it has been for the people of faith of every age, as far back as Adam and Eve who thought they could do their own thing in the garden. They failed. Yet God went searching for them. Although they were dismissed from the garden they were far from lost. After the fall they grew in grace and faith. As time went on they taught their children how to worship, evidenced in the pure worship of their son Abel, whom Cain slew. They also had thankful hearts when God blessed them with another son in whom they acknowledged that he was a blessing from the hand of God. And the Scripture notes that after the birth of Seth men began to call on the name of the Lord. This means that public worship was introduced among the people of faith who were living at the time. All of this was after Adam and Eve fell in the garden. By their example we should take heart that we will also grow in grace and faith if we are sincere, even if we have been wayward or failed miserably. For we are convinced it is not the beginning of a person that counts the most but the latter because Scripture confirms that even the thirty-fold who persevere and bear fruit can rejoice that they are safe and redeemed in the end. Listen to Our Devotional Podcast
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