The Mark of Spiritual Maturity

source: biblia.com

How do you know if you are growing in Christ?  Our unity with other believers is perhaps the most important way to measure spiritual maturity.

It's too common for us in the American church  —  in our individualistic culture — to focus exclusively on our personal relationship with Jesus. We forget or overlook that  almost all of the New Testament's teaching about faith is in terms of community of other believers.

The biblia.com verse of the day reminded me this morning of one of my favorite passages in the Bible:

until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ
Ephesians 4:13 (ESV)

This is by no means the only place the NT teaches the importance of relationships in the Church, but the emphasis here is especially easy to see. 

The purpose is to reach maturity... the "fullness of Christ."

But how do I do that?
On my own?
Spending more time with Jesus?

Well, no. At least, that's not all. Don't get me wrong; the Greatest Commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matt 22:37)  But that's not enough. There is a reason that the second is "love your neighbor as yourself:" You can't have one without the other.

Let's look at the rest of the passage:

¹ I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 
⁴There is
    one body and
    one Spirit
       — just as you were called to the
      one hope that belongs to your call —
     ⁵one Lord,
    one faith,
    one baptism,
    ⁶one God and Father of all,
     who is over all and through all and in all. 
⁷ But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ... ¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. 
Ephesians 4:1–16 (ESV)

Apart from the fact that the whole picture of "Body" is one of togetherness, notice how many "unity" words there are here: "with one another... unity... bond... one, one, one... building up... unity..."  Wow, do you think there's a message here? The author even says how to have unity with others: verses 2 and 3.

If you want community with people, you must have humility, patience, and love... which come from Christ.
If you want to grow up in Christ, you also have to grow together with his followers.

The World is Ending Tomorrow

If you want to understand the Bible, don't look for hidden messages; believe that it says what it means.  Believe it has something to teach you about how you actually live your life.

Last night's lesson got postponed when the discussion turned toward Judgment Day -- which, despite some misconceptions, is neither a cyborg invasion nor a professional wrestling smackdown.  The End Times discussion has been getting a lot of attention lately, due to billboards and signholders which have popped up all over the county and the country. 

"The Bible Guarantees It"

Billboards like this one have been
popping up in Whatcom County.

Why May 21? How do they figure that after almost 2000 years, Christ will return on precisely that date?  The argument can be summarized this way:

• Premise One: God's Judgment Day is going to come exactly 7,000 years after the Great Flood.
• God told Noah that the Flood (ie, his judgment) would come in 7 days, on the 17th day of the 2nd (Biblical) month. (Gen 7:10-11)
• 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that with the Lord, "a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day."
  
• Premise Two:  We can learn by "careful study" of genealogies in the Bible that the Flood happened in 4990 BC.
• Conclusion : 4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7,000 = Judgment Day will come on May 21, 2011.

Is It True?

First of all, this is nothing new; people have predicting Christ's return ever since he left.  Obviously, none of those have been right, and the Bible is very clear that "no one knows that day or the hour" (Mt 24:36 / Mk 13:3; see also Mt 25:13; Ac 1:7; 1 Th 5:1-2; 2 Pe 3:10).  But is it possible that the clues above have been in the Bible all along, just waiting to be solved?  There is so much wrong with this logic, I almost don't know where to start; every step of the argument is flawed. Let's just focus on one:

When Peter says "a thousand years are like a single day," he doesn't mean that this is a decoder ring for understanding God's time; all you have to do is read the context to realize that his point is just the opposite!  For starters, look at the rest of the sentence: it goes both ways.  To paraphrase, 

One of your days is like a thousand years to God, and
a thousand of your years are like a single day to God.

Does that make any sense? No, it doesn't.  Not to us, anyway, and that's the point: God lives on a different level of reality, and his time is not like our time. (Actually, remember, even our time is not like our time.)  Peter isn't saying anything here about how the word "day" is used anywhere else in Scripture. 

You can't just snip sentences out of the Bible and make them mean what you want them to mean; take the time to understand the message of the writer.  Claiming that the Bible "guarantees" judgement on May 21 will only damage the credibility of the Bible (and believers) when May 22 rolls around.

How Should We Be Ready?

What bothers me even more, though, is the attitude this reveals in Christians.  It's very easy to slip into a mindset that's dismissive, skeptical, or even mocking.  "Jesus is coming?" we think, "Yeah, right. I hope there's something good on TV tonight."  Yeah, we don't know that Jesus is coming on May 21. But we don't know he isn't, either.

The whole reason that Peter writes this is to warn the believers that they need to be ready.  It's the same reason that Jesus tells the parables of Mt 24:36-25:13. If you knew when He was coming, of course you will be ready! But since you don't know, it could be any moment. You need to be ready all the time.

Katie raised an excellent question: How do we be ready? Jesus answers that question, too.  He continues to teach, through the parable of the talents, that God has invested us with certain gifts, that we should use our lives for his glory.  He goes on to spell out exactly what is expected from us:

 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me... ’ (Matt 25:31-46) 

Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is a love God with everything, and second is to love your neighbor as yourself.  With these words, he combines them; your love for Christ is revealed by how you treat others.  It's in how you spend your time. It's in how you spend your money. It's in how you live your life.

When someone wants to debate when the Lord will return, understand that it doesn't really matter. Tell them that you are doing the best you can, every day, to live a life that honors God and cares for others.  If you really are, then they will have no answer to that.

And if you aren't caring for "the least of these"... read to the rest to see if you are really following Jesus.

The Motivating Power of Transparency

I just watched the trailer for the Flow documentary -- and followed it up with an article on the April 2000 privatization of a Bolivian city's water supply.

Normally I'm a real pro-privatization kind of guy, especially because I work with a federal agency at my (other) day job and see the night-and-day difference between government work and private work.

But all things told, I think non-profits are the clear winner. I'm especially impressed by Mozilla and how they've managed to beat Microsoft at it's own game -- and by the numerous successful credit unions (WECU, ICU, GAPAC, etc) that have better rates and better service than commercial banks (though my recent experience trying to get a usable HSA has dampened my enthusiasm -- Jessica and I ended up settling for an account at a bank).

So my advice to Bolivia would be to turn over the city's water to a non-profit. The trouble with non-profits is that they need a bunch of passionate people and a good leader-and-manager who is consumed with the Cause. Getting the passionate people is easy (the residents of Cochabamba). It's the leader that's the hard part. He (or she) has to be so passionate he's willing to give up the higher wages of the for-profit sector in exchange for promoting this Cause.

It may sound easy, but try knocking on the doors of the few Cochabamba residents who have the leadership and managerial skills to turn around a large organization. Ask them to give up their job to revitalize an indebted-and-poorly-managed water organization and see what their response is. The few who have the necessary skills are -- you guessed it -- already CEOs and Presidents of small (or large) businesses. They take home big paychecks and have already adjusted their lifestyle accordingly. As large as their heart may be for the poor, it's much easier to write a check than to change your career... and your standard of living.

I don't know, but I'm guessing the person they actually hired was likely the same sort of person TFC hired: somebody with a lot of potential but no real experience. How does this one person turn around an organization and get it healthy?

One secret I've learned from my work with the government sector is the motivating power of transparency. When you open up the books and show the world what's working and what's dysfunctional -- and expose the details so everyone can see whose department/region/office is to blame, it's then that people start moving.

The first obvious shortcoming of this strategy is that you can measure water distribution and soaring rates, but you can't measure spiritual growth. Or... can you? Granted, spiritual growth itself is subjective. But there are also indicators of growth -- and indicators of decay.

We could take quarterly surveys asking the teens themselves (on a scale of 1 to 5) if they've grown in their understanding of the Word, in their love for Jesus and in making their faith their own. We can look at how many students are being actively discipled -- and how many are growing from those mentoring/coaching relationships. We can look at how many non-Christians are hearing the gospel from friends. We can look at how often the public hears about the ministry (formally or informally, the public has to hear about Teens For Christ or it will gradually die out).

In the end, we have to remember it's not about getting the survey results and other numbers up. It's about addressing the problems and opportunities represented by the numbers.

-- Peter Rust