Barabbas Road Church in San Diego: Christian Maturity

What does Christian maturity look like? This question can sometimes be hard to answer because Christian maturity is very vague. What makes Christian maturity so vague is that there are different components to it. From a bird’s eye view, Christian maturity is becoming more like Christ. Therefore, as a believer is being transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit they are being made new in Christ. The old is being put away and the new is being added. This causes a believer to grow and mature in Christ.If the goal is to become like Christ, then how does a believer reach that goal? To answer that question the believer must understand what Christian maturity looks like every day.

There are three important components of Christian maturity. The first component is being faithful to scripture each day. Being faithful to scripture is not just reading the Bible every day, but imitating what the Bible teaches on a daily basis.The second component of Christian maturity is to be an imitator. The Apostle Paul instructs the people of Corinth to, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).” Believers should be imitating one another in the church and reflecting Christ. This is why being faithful to scripture is the first step, because it’s impossible to reflect Christ without being faithful to God’s Word.The next step is embracing the first two components and doing them over and over again. It’s creating a pattern. This leads to the next component of Christian maturity, which is walking in the Spirit.

Paul says to pursue godliness because it is of great value. To pursue godliness is to walk in the Spirit. Pursuing godliness can look like a number of things. Pursuing godliness is having other godly people in the believer’s life, daily doing life together and reflecting Christ. Pursuing godliness is the believer thinking about godly things and setting their mind on Christ each day (Colossians 3:1-2). Pursuing godliness is also the renewing (Romans 12:2) and the reorienting of the believer’s mind to think about scripture and God more and more. Pursuing godliness is worshiping God not only on Sundays, but every single day. Also, being a good husband or wife, being an obedient child or good employee, these are all examples of pursuing godliness.

Christian maturity is so important because at Barabbas Road Church in San Diego the mission is to make “disciple making” disciples. Disciples are being made through the personal investment of lives. If believers are not growing in the scriptures, growing in their relationship with God or growing in their relationships with other Christians then it will be difficult to make “disciple making” disciples.

Christian maturity isn’t super spirituality. It’s focusing on and doing well with what God has placed in front of you right now in the roles that you have. God has put you where you are, so the idea is to be faithful with what he has given you and taking one step towards faithfully following the scriptures. Then once you take that first step you take another step and another,then next thing you know you are walking in the spirit. This is why Christian maturity is such an important distinctive at Barabbas Road Church in San Diego.