Going On to Maturity

"Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection." Many believers hear perfection and shrink back: "I could never be perfect." But Scripture isn't describing sinless flesh. Teachings that promised people they could become so holy they'd never err or die have been disproved by time. Perfection means whole, complete, full-grown. Believers keep bringing the works of the flesh under the Spirit's authority, but the goal is spiritual maturity: growing up into Christ, the head.

Leaving the "principles of the doctrine of Christ" does not mean declaring them unimportant. Teachings that say "We don't need the blood anymore" or "We don't need the Bible" are not truth. Truth that has entered the heart remains, and growth adds to it: faith, then virtue, then knowledge, then temperance. A child finishing first grade hasn't graduated; first grade is over, and second grade begins. You don't throw away arithmetic to study algebra; you need it to do the algebra. We go from victory to victory, carrying each one forward.

It sounds like a contradiction, but it is impossible to go into the greater dimensions of God without going back to the foundations. You can build a small structure on a weak foundation, but a skyscraper in earthquake country needs deep footings. The same is true spiritually. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus didn't reveal Himself to His disciples by showing His wounds. He took them back, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets," and expounded the things concerning Himself. Their eyes opened because He went back first.

Saying "I'm on I-40" doesn't reveal whether you're in the Carolinas, Tennessee or Oklahoma. Saying "I'm walking with God" doesn't reveal how far you've gone or how far you're willing to go. Man lives "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God": a continuing word that keeps fueling the journey. All along the highway are exits and comfortable rest areas where travelers can stop or turn back. Like a drowning man clinging to a small branch while a log floats by, people hold onto what is good and miss what is better. Usually what stops them is fear, and fear cancels faith.

The life that presses on is marked by a divine discontent: wanting God more than daily food, watching for Him more than those who wait for the morning. Trials will come, and the very first thing after a spiritual breakthrough is often a test, just as Jesus was driven into the wilderness right after His baptism. The hungry believer sets their face like a flint and refuses to be turned around.

Most church signs don't really say who a congregation is. They say where it stopped. A group reaches a doctrinal point, declares "we have arrived," and becomes a maintenance crew: patch the roads, stay saved, keep everyone happy, wait to die and go to glory. Hebrews warns against this: "For the time ye ought to be teachers," yet many still need milk. The church becomes a nursery where people remain in eternal childhood.

Hebrews 6 lists foundational doctrines: repentance, faith, baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection and judgment. These are exactly what Christians fight over, splitting into thousands of denominations that read the same Bible and preach the same Jesus while doubting each other's salvation. They divide over when the blood is applied, whether confession must be public, the order of repentance and baptism, dress codes, instruments and tongues. Hebrews says such fighting "crucifies the Son of God afresh."

"Truth is truth even though it's not all truth." Someone can hold something true, but if it isn't complete, it leaves other things in error. There is no idolatry as great as taking one portion of truth and building a church, an organization or a life on it as though it were the whole. Truth must be wholesome, full of wholeness. A spiritual diet heavy in one thing and missing the rest leaves God's people unhealthy.

When David wanted to build God a cedar house, God replied that He had never asked for one. He was content in a tent and a tabernacle. Part of David's desire was to fix God in one place where He could be reached at will. In the wilderness, Israel moved whenever the fire or cloud moved. When the cloud's shade lifted, the sun grew hot. Some believers think they're dying in a fierce wilderness when the cloud has simply moved. Believers are temples of God and should be portable, free of heavy permanencies that keep them from following.