Life Notes

Maturing In Christ
By Tim Russ

As a child and even into my teenage years I sometimes looked at my dad’s hands. They were rugged and wrinkled a bit but they were so large that I couldn’t imagine ever getting hands that large. Somehow his hands developed into a representation of manhood. Without having large rugged manly hands like his I felt I could never consider myself to have actually arrived at manhood.

I watched my hands grow as time aged me. One day after I was married and had fathered my first child I was shaving, just as I had done hundreds of times before, and I happened to notice my hands. My dad’s hands were where my hands used to be. His rugged beautiful manly hands had somehow been transposed with my childish hands. At that moment I finally accepted that I had become a man.

It’s funny the different things we establish as criteria for measuring our growth. The line on a wall, how many years we’ve been alive, graduation from a particular school or grade, whether we’re married. Christianity frequently speaks about maturing. The bible tells us to grow up in Christ; to stop living on milk and to eat meat. Those metaphors drove my development as a new Christian.

(Hebrews 5:12-14 KJV) For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. {13} For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. {14} But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

As a newborn baby in Christ I could easily relate to the milk of God’s word. I was hungry. I was hungry for life! That life was first found in an experience with my Savior and continued through his living word. After 20 years of death that life was so engaging that I rapidly became addicted to experiencing it.

The problem was that I didn’t have any hands to examine. God is Spirit. Spirit is super natural and cannot be seen except with the mind’s eye. Oh I would imagine the rough hands of Jesus, the carpenter. I could see the calluses where he had used hand tools to shape wood. I could see the tender hands that healed the sick. I could see the large hands that picked up little children as he encouraged them. I could see holy hands that dripped blood for my redemption. But I couldn’t see real life hands. I could only see them through my mind’s eye.

I avidly studied the bible. I went to church whenever they didn’t lock the doors. Sometimes ministers would come into the sanctuary to find me crying just because I was overwhelmed by the joy that God had forgiven me. They were so very patient with me. I witnessed to any human being that could not outrun me. (Grin) I asked so many questions that I frustrated more than one minister. I prayed with my wife asking God to bless me with wisdom so that I could serve him properly. I had lived such a sinful life that I really didn’t know how to live a godly life.

The bible became an ancient treasure chest that I discovered. It was fresh to me. I was in my twenties and had never really listened to much anyone had to say about it. I had heard some Sunday school stories and the popular verses that Christians seem to quote a lot but none of it ever really made much sense to me so I ignored it until I became a Christian.

I sat in church and heard sermons on maturing in Christ. Usually I identified with the Christian they talked about who needed milk to survive and was not able to digest the meat of the Word. So I sat down periodically to study the bible in search of clues about how to be an adult Christian. I would find some things and promptly get discouraged because I couldn’t see myself ever attaining those personal commitments and attributes.

I was casually talking to another church member one day and didn’t know that a third church member was listening to me. After the discussion was over she walked up to me and thanked me for sharing and allowing her to eavesdrop. Then she said an astounding thing to me. “I can see Jesus in you.” Her simple compliment shook me to the core. How could she see Christ in me? I am just a baby Christian! I went back to the word with a renewed interest in maturity and found the Apostle Paul’s words:

(Philippians 3:10-15 KJV) That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; {11} If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. {12} Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. {13} Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, {14} I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. {15} Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Being mature in Christ is like many other Christian virtues. If you have it you don’t flaunt it, you don’t feel it, you don’t fake it. You simply live it with a humble heart through a lifestyle commitment of serving others. If you are reading this you are most probably one of the mature or seeking that level of growth. As Paul said, if you seek to be mature, then keep seeking Christ. After all, that truly is the sign of maturity.


Copyright © 2008 Tim Russ.  All rights reserved.