Growing up in Spiritual Maturity
God created us in
his own likeness and image for his glory in Genesis 1:26-27. He created us to
have a pleasing and delightful relationship with him and to rejoice in him. He
created us to extend his rule through us in this world as his representatives.
We were ought to accept his rule in our life and to enjoy him forever.
It is God’s quest
to be glorified because he is worthy of it (Isa. 42:8). He is of pure
excellence. He created us so that we would praise him and we have the
satisfaction in praising him. We praise him for his worthiness and in that we
find our true joy and great delight. Praise from our side echoes God’s
greatness and mightiness. From praise, our satisfaction level reaches its
summit that comes by delighting in fellowship with God.
What
is its significance in our spiritual growth? Our meaning of life, foundation of
life, our identification, our address and our purpose get their fulfillment in
having delightful relationship with God. We live in a society and in modern
world we have so much developments. We rejoice in them and glorify them. Modern
equipment demands our review and compliment which corresponds to glory. We
enjoy them and praise them! We get in a relationship with everyday equipment of
life. We limit our purpose, our identification, address, meaning and foundation
of our life on those temporal things.
What
about God who is our creator? We were cut off from his fellowship (Genesis 3).
We began to live independently from God and seeking our delight in worldly
things. We got sorrows and sufferings in name of fulfilling desires of a
meaningless life. Then Jesus came and fixed the chaos of our life. He was a
treasure who gave us God back to our life. Once we were dead and desperate and
now, we are made alive and delighted in Christ (1 Cor. 15:22).
Jesus
was the only person in whole human history who represents the perfect human God
intended to make. God wants everyone of us to be like him, dead for our sins
and becoming alive for fellowship with God; dead for our selfish desires and
alive for desiring God; dead for our self-induced identification, meaning and
purpose of life and alive for God’s intended identification, meaning and
purpose of life (Gal. 2:20). The first Adam ruined everything whereas the
second Adam fixed everything.
Jesu
calls us to walk in the way he walked, to live the way he lived, to think the
way he thought, to enjoy God the way he enjoyed, to see the world the way he
saw, to accomplish the will of God the way he did, to have humility in life the
way he had, to serve others the way he served, to love others the way he loved,
to empathize others the way he empathized, to become obedient and submissive to
Father the way he did. He finished the battle and calls us to participate in
that victory! He disarmed the power of darkness and calls to continuously
struggle against their works. He started a new covenant and calls us to
maintain it and guard it. He paid the price of sin and purchased the salvation
for us and calls us to accept it and have an eternal rest from all work-based
burden for salvation. He overcame the temptations and calls us to follow his
path to get victory. He restored dependency and relationship with God and calls
us to meet him, to confess sins before him, to accept him, to enjoy him, and to
submit ourselves to him. He served throughout his life and calls us to be a
servant to serve others. Our spiritual maturity development has foundation upon
Christ Jesus and delighting in relationship with God (Heb. 12:2).
We
are granted His Holy Spirit so that we may never stumble but be raised in his
guidance and direction. Our struggle is real to gain spiritual maturity but God
is always there to sustain us regardless of any situations of life. Jesus is
the key to our spiritual maturity. We don’t just believe him but we follow him
and make him our treasure of life.