Summary
Sometime ago I came across a very troubling large survey of churchgoers and church leaders that showed 81% of self-identified Christians equated spiritual maturity as “trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible”. This, four out of five(!) stat, is particularly troubling because it comes from people who acknowledge that salvation is not earned through good works.
The survey further showed, that most churchgoers are not clear what their church expects in terms of spiritual maturity, and pastors also, struggle with articulating a specific set of objectives for spirituality, often favouring activities over attitudes. The result of focusing on outward activities means the we are left with a “niceism” or a “moralism”, a new set of laws to follow. But this is not the biblical vision of a maturing Christian life. So, we’ll explore until Advent (with a couple of breaks), what the Bible gives as our target and what’s involved for maturing in our life following Jesus. Here is the series outline:
- Targeting Maturity, Hebrews 5:11-6:3, 2 Peter 1:1-9 (Aug 6th)
- Removing heart idols, Colossians 3:1-11 (Aug 13th)
- Identity in Christ, Colossians 3:1-14 (Aug 27th)
- Fruits of the Spirit, Galatians 5:1-26 (Sept 3rd)
- Gifts of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:1-31 (Sept 10th)
- Meditation, Psalm 1 and 19 (Sept 24th)
- Obedience, Psalm 119:32-49 (Oct 1st)
- Worship, Psalm 95 (Oct 15th)
- Contentment, Psalm 131, Phil 4:10-13 (Oct 22nd)
- Confession, Psalm 32, 51:1-12 (Oct 29th)
- Alert waiting, Matt 25:1-13, Psalm 130, 2 Peter 3:1-15 (Nov 5th)
