Are you really spiritually mature?

There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.

So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.

For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come—and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.

When the ground soaks up the falling rain and bears a good crop for the farmer, it has God’s blessing. But if a field bears thorns and thistles, it is useless. The farmer will soon condemn that field and burn it.

Dear friends, even though we are talking this way, we really don’t believe it applies to you. We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation. For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do. Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance. Hebrews 5:11-6:12 NLT

Are you ‘spiritually dull of hearing’? Have you been sitting listening to sermons for years and are still not discipling others? Are you listening to the same ‘milk’ of the faith every Sunday morning and thinking that it’s solid food?

Unfortunately, the majority of the religious institutional models for ‘worship services’ and sermons we have now are not conducive or instructive for the spiritually mature disciple of Christ, as it is targeted at the non-believer and to the new believer.

When the ekklesia (Body of Christ / Church / meetings could be as small as 2-3 individuals) came together in the first century it was about building up each other in the faith and was NOT for the unbeliever. It was about discipleship with lots of discussion and questions and conversation. It didn’t have a formality or liturgy, it was about ‘family’. Family that ate together and fellowshipped together and bringing their testimonies from the past week of how Jesus and the Holy Spirit had been working in their lives.

Do you attend a meeting like that every week? Where you discuss the ‘deeper’ things spiritually happening in your life? Where you can ask the difficult, dangerous, and honest questions? A meeting where there are no time constraints on the worship of Jesus and the flow of the Holy Spirit? Or are all of the “religious” meetings you attend highly structured and regimented? Find a small group of hungry, passionate, disciples of Christ immersed with the Holy Spirit who are excited about living the life Jesus has purposed for them … daily. What does it really mean to ‘make disciples’? Are you making disciples? Or are you just inviting people to an ‘entertainment’ / theater show / religious service?

Disciple. Baptize. Teach. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Become spiritually mature.