Mature means having completed natural growth and development. It means being RIPE or having attained a final or desired state, relating to a condition of full development.
Maturity is the ability to respond to the environment.
Being aware of the correct timing, how to behave, and knowing when to act, according to the circumstances and the culture of the society one lives in.
Eph 4:12
…to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…
Eph 4:13
“until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Divine maturity is a maturity that can come only from God.
There are certain things in life that we cannot be qualified for until we are mature.
Two Types Of Maturity
- Natural Maturity
- Divine Maturity
Phases of Maturity
1st starting awareness, 2nd developing – beginning of action, and 3rd maturing – making the right choice
A woman can be pregnant as a teenager! But we know that a teenager is not mature!
It takes nine months for the baby to fully mature in her womb.
To birth, the child after 9 months of conception means there is maturity wrapped up in immaturity!
Natural maturity is considered as full development.
“OJT” Remember this word?
Before people can graduate, they have to go thru hours of OJT or practicum in different companies.
Problem is, while in OJT, they make the students do odd tasks that are not really helpful to their course; [accounting students made to count coins and stack them]
So, what happened is, they were taught, but they were not trained!
These people have the theory, they’ve studied it, but they’ve never done it.
That only means they don’t have the experience for it – they were taught but not trained!
In the real world, they were not ready, they were immature.
This is the problem with many churches today – the people get a lot of teachings, but they were not trained. Often, they even cause problems when they are given assignments or launched.
There are fruits that are very good when ripe, but deadly and poisonous when unripe, it can kill you.
If you choose to live in immaturity, you could die before your time because of your wrong decisions [food, friends, business]
Jamaican ackee fruit
Unripe ackee fruit contains a poison called hypoglycin, so preparers must be careful to wait until the fruit’s protective pods turn red and open naturally. Once open, the only edible portion is the yellow arilli, which surround always-toxic black seeds. (source: www.time.com – 10 Most Dangerous Food)
If we only harvest the mature fruits in agriculture, how much more for the work of the Lord.
If the workers are in a state of immaturity, it could damage the church as a whole. In church, immaturity doesn’t mean you don’t have a gift or an anointing.
Today, we have immature people practicing power and holding offices – the anointing is not the issue. The problem arises when people mistake anointing for maturity. Balaam was an anointed prophet, but he was very immature – often, what man calls maturity, God doesn’t!
Q? How do you know you are mature?
Eph 4:12
to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…
Eph 2:10
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Everything was pre-ordained- if we were not trained for it, we will jeopardize it, then we become miserable and we make others miserable as well because we could make immature decisions.
For others, there is actually a resistance to be mature!
We don’t want to do God’s works so we don’t obey His commands. We cannot make people in the church do and keep His commands!
Eccl 12:13
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man.
As you mature, you will realize that it’s an honor and a delight to keep His commandments.
It’s in our obedience that we are graded by God, not only by what we do or by our anointing – maybe it’s not what God wants!
Matt 7:21
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.
Matt 7:22
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’
Matt 7:23
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!
We are not graded because of the anointing in our lives.
Eph 4:13
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. NIV
Eph 4:13
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: KJV
The word mature was not used in the KJV, instead, it was the word perfect. Perfect means being entire without fault or defect: FLAWLESS and ACCURATE. In the mind of God, the word mature means to be perfect; But to the natural man, to be perfect is impossible. We are so incompatible with God. We were taught but we were not trained or processed. If you had not been processed, as everyone needs to undergo some process, you wouldn’t know if what you are doing is accurate. You don’t know if what you are doing is what you should actually be doing!
There is no accuracy because there is so much immaturity!
Eph 4:13
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. NIV
That means until we are united in the faith and in the knowledge of Christ, we are not mature!
We are still like infants or little children!
Eph 4:14
Then we will no longer be infants [children], tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
Matt 18:3
And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, [childlike faith not childish] you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
We cannot allow deceitful people to trick us with their false teachings which are like the wind that tosses us back and forth! The problem with many Christians, when confronted by truth, instead of choosing to mature, they remain immature and even allow their immaturity to take them to a new home. They go to another church bringing their immaturity with them being tossed back and forth – they have been deceived because they are emotion-driven and not Spirit-led. When a person is led by his/her emotion, that person is immature. An emotional person cannot handle the truth!
Two Responses to Truth:
1st is CONVICTION:
It’s what comes from God as prompted by The Holy Spirit!
2nd is REACTION:
It’s when your blood pressure goes up! It’s when you get angry after hearing the TRUTH!
When a person reacts instead of being convicted by the truth, that means the deception of the enemy is deep in the heart of that person!
It’s our reaction to the truth that causes hell to open in our circumstances!
Your immaturity made you react in a manner you most definitely would regret later!
Being truthful and telling the truth are not the same.
Truth is TRUTH.
But being truthful often involves feelings, because even if what you say does not come from the truth but comes from a reaction to the truth, you are being truthful – emotionally. Immature people always make their decisions based on their feelings, based on their emotions – they are led by them!
Heb 5:8-9
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him…
He learned! But wasn’t He God? Does God need to learn?
Being in the flesh, He suspended all His attributes and characteristics as God and took on our attributes and characteristics. In becoming flesh, He must understand you by becoming you!
He cannot do things the way God does them…
He must do it like us!
Being man, He cannot do the will of the Father as God, but as a man!
So, He had to be processed – He was forced to learn!
How did He learn?
From what He suffered!
Luke 4:1-2
Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil.
We too cannot become mature until we have been processed. The process is the process of death – we die daily by humbling ourselves daily. The question here is have you been processed? The word impossible comes from a lack of will that is given or surrendered to God our Authority. The purpose of learning is experienced by process…
Process plus [+] experience equals [=] maturity!
If you have gone thru nothing, then you’ve learned nothing!
Privilege If Not Processed Cannot Sustain Greatness!
ITS TIME FOR CHANGE
ITS TIME WE CHOOSE TO BECOME MATURE
Prov 23:23
Buy truth – don’t sell it for love or money; buy wisdom, buy education, buy insight. THE MESSAGE
Maturity is not measured by age, it’s an attitude built by experience.