Tag: christian maturity

Faith, Hope, and Love

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            God is real.  The Christian life works.  Those are the bedrock presuppositions and assumptions I work from each and every day of my life and ministry.  If I did not believe those statements I would be knee-deep in the muck of church work with little to offer people.  Because I believe that Christianity works for people, I also confidently hold that the correct response to the reality of God is faith, hope, and love.  Any response to God less than this will result in an inability to function well in the Christian life. 
 
The path to maturity for any local church is to bring all thinking, desires, attitudes, aspirations, and actions in harmony with trusting God, loving God, and making Him the object of our hope.
 
            At first glance this might sound difficult.  But this is really not rocket science.  It is only confusing if we have not been taught correctly according to the Word of God.  If we have lived in error when it comes to how the Christian life works, then there are established patterns of thinking and behavior which are neither easy to identify and evaluate, nor to defeat.
 
            Therefore, the very first step in solving this kind of problem is to get back to the bedrock belief of God.  We cannot effectively respond in faith, hope, and love to a God we do not know much of. 
 
Knowing God, then, is an absolute necessity to the Christian life in order to experience spiritual freedom and be fruitful in ministry.
 
            God is a Person.  He is the infinite God, the Creator of all things and is thus worthy of all our trust and affection (e.g. 1 Samuel 17:20-51; Daniel 6:1-28; 2 Chronicles 14-16).  God is absolute truth, love, and holiness.  God will always remain true to himself in all of his relationships and actions with us.  He does not act out of harmony with his basic character.  Therefore, God can be trusted.
 
            God has revealed himself through the Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  The Bible is God’s Word to us.  The Word of God cannot fail because God cannot fail.  God is always true to himself and to his Word (e.g. Psalm 119:49-50; 146:5-6; Jeremiah 32:1-44; Romans 4:21; Hebrews 2:1-3).  The Word of God is living and is therefore powerful. 
 
To the degree that we know and practice the Word of God, we have the experience of the grace of God and therefore have the power of God.
 
            It is a wonderful and tremendous privilege to possess the Word of God with all of its potential to effect change in our lives; its certainty concerning who God is; and, its assurance of pardon through faith.  So, then, each and every believer has a sacred responsibility:
 
We must be aggressive in knowing the Word of God; we must be confident in believing God; we must be active in claiming the promises of God; and, we must be intentional about living according to what God has revealed about himself and his creatures.
 

 

            Church ministry, then, has a sacred trust to help people know God better.  No matter what the ministries, programs, or activities, our greatest aim is to connect people with the God who is real and who has given us guidance by means of his powerful Word.  Faith, hope, and love are the logical and heartfelt responses to knowing God.  The promise we have is that when we seek God will all our heart, we will find him.  Amen and amen.

Maturity

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment

 

          Maybe it goes without saying that a genuine Christian wants to follow Jesus. We all may have various ideas of how to do this, or differ on what the goal of spiritual growth is. Yet, perhaps we need to ask what God wants and what his goal is for his followers? Maturity is where it is at, man, and we all need it, without exception. It is not unusual for me to have a conversation with a student who is hot for God, and bemoans some problem in the church or world, but lacks the maturity to go with the fire. I usually say something to the effect, “yeah, well, you can post your 95 Theses once you own a door to put them on.”  It’s also not unusual for many Christians today to have heard thousands of sermons, but there is no fire to go with the length of time spent in church and, furthermore, is not sure of how to avail of the great Christian resource of grace.  Physical maturity does not always equal spiritual maturity.  And maturity does not happen apart from unity.
 

 

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians telling them his aim: “Him (Jesus) we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (1:28). He echoes this again with the Ephesians letting them know that the process of maturity is to not be done in isolation, but together as a community of believers, so that no one is left out or behind in God’s goal of seeing a well-rounded church, fully developed and equipped to follow Jesus in every circumstance of life (4:13). Our Lord himself exhorted us to be mature, just as our heavenly Father is. Since God is mature, we are to reflect him in all of our relationships by handling them in a mature manner (Matthew 5:46-48).

The author of the book of Hebrews tells us that those who are mature have developed a keen sense of discernment in distinguishing between good and evil (5:14); and, Paul told the Phillipians that maturity brings a proper perspective from which to view hard situations and allows one to endure suffering (3:12-15).

Here is the crux of the matter:  maturity results from spiritual growth which occurs over an extended period of time in the context of community. Maturity can neither be realized with only growth, nor with just time. Both are needed in order to reach a mature state. The process of growth over time is of vital importance to Jesus, who knows that this is the manner in which one bears fruit that will last (Luke 8:9-15).

Are you spiritually mature? If so, how did you get to this point? If not, how will maturity be realized? Does my ministry and church have maturity as a goal? Why, or why not? May God be gracious to work in us and instill in his children his own mature nature so that we may be like Jesus in all we do and say.