Spiritual Maturity

The Jewish Christians probably struggled as much as any New Testament body of believers. Their belief structure--rooted in Judaism--hung onto age-old traditions and maintaining the Law; making it difficult for them to grow in grace that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. The combination of staying in their comfort zones of Jewish traditions and trying to blend in with their culture actually made them spiritually immature and unable to discern truth.

Check out this admonishment: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:12-14). Sometimes our lack of spiritual maturity can result in us buying in to false doctrine and needing to go all the way back to the basic fundamentals of faith to get back on track.

Just as we expect to grow physically from being children to becoming adults, we need to grow spiritually by exercising our faith and becoming skilled in the knowledge of God's Word. Then--and only then--can we effectively build discernment and train our consciences, our senses, our minds and our bodies to distinguish good from evil and sound doctrine from our enemy's lies. Our spiritual growth allows us to feast on the solid food of a deeper knowledge of God.