5 Attributes Of Maturity

Transcription

1 5 Attributes Of Maturity By Dr. Dan Cheatham 1. Maturity is the willingness to accept responsibility. Repentance, by the way, is you taking responsibility for your own mistakes and confessing them away to God so that He can help you start over again. Repenting matures you in the very process of doing so! Glory! And intercessory prayer for others who are caught in sin doubles the rate of your spiritual growth and maturity. Why? Because you are standing in the gap as you accept responsibility before God for the shortcomings of others. O Double Glory! Hallelujah! * I accept responsibility for my own choices, good or bad. * I accept responsibility for my own decisions, wise or foolish. * Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (KJV) - 19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: 20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. * Someone has wisely noted that in life: First we make our choices, then our choices make us! * The choices we make in our early years shape our latter years. There are WINDOWS of time for certain things. If we miss our early WINDOWS, we may miss some of our latter blessings! * I accept responsibility for my own time management. No excuses! * I accept responsibility for my calendar and schedules. Page 1 of 7

2 * I accept responsibility for the quality and quantity of my work. No laziness allowed! * I accept responsibility for my own eternal destiny... heaven or hell. * I accept responsibility for my own mistakes and righting them whenever and with whomever possible. * With God s help, I accept responsibility for the management of my own temperament, reactions and emotions. God has made me an emotional being, but He expects me to manage those emotions with His Help. After all, God Himself has feelings and emotions and preferences! * I accept responsibility for my own financial decisions. * I accept responsibility for my own prayer life and my own Bible reading, study, memorization and meditation. * I take personal responsibility for my spiritual growth and the condition of my soul. No one else can do this for me! * I accept responsibility for my own health, longevity, and physical fitness. * I respect THE LAW OF INEVITABLE EVENTUALITY. * I accept personal responsibility for making any changes and adjustments necessary, with God s help. * I accept personal responsibility for maintaining my relationships with all the significant others in my life. Relationships must be nurtured, protected and maintained. * I accept responsibility for the words I choose to speak. * I accept personal responsibility for the thoughts I choose to think and dwell upon. Page 2 of 7

3 * I accept personal responsibility for my own imagination. Imagination is a gift from God that I choose to use for His glory! * Life is NOT que sera, sera... what will be will be is NOT true at all! Lie from the pit of hell. * I take personal responsibility for my own spending, saving, and sowing habits. My financial life is dependent on my own spending, my own saving, and my own sowing into God s work and priorities. The government is NOT my source - God is! Others who are successful are NOT my source - God is! And God is the original Equal Opportunity Employer! * Mike Murdock: Parasites only want what s in your hand. Protégés want what s in your heart and mind! 2. Maturity is the ability to delay self-gratification. * Immaturity says, I want it, and I want it now! (A possible definition of lust of any type.) * Ecclesiastes chapter 3, however, states that THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERY SEASON AND ACTIVITY and that GOD MAKES EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN HIS TIME. * Immaturity says, I want what is yours! I m entitled! ( Get your own box of Cheezits! ) * But the reality is that you re only entitled to what God says you can have by your own wise decisions and obedience to Him! * Almost all our mistakes are made when we re in a hurry or flurry! * If I can say NO today, God will say YES tomorrow! * Too much debt is PROOF of GREED. Page 3 of 7

4 * Debt can result in ROBBING my future to ENRICH my present. * If I can wait for it, I can truly have it a little later. * If I cannot wait for it, I probably won t be able to keep it long anyhow. * Delayed Self-Gratification later becomes PERMANENT PLEASURE. * Now or Later. That is the question! * The question is NOT: Can I have it? Of course you can! God emphatically states you can have the desires of your heart! Just read Psalm 37. The right question IS: How and when can I have it? * Whatever I RUSH into, I will REGRET later! * Someone has wisely noted, It s easier to play catch-up than clean-up! 3. Maturity is the attribute of cherishing correction from another. * Psalms 141:5 (KJV) - 5 Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. * Much hangs on whether I can receive correction from others. * If we refuse correction we prove the existence of our deep-seated seeds of rebellion. * If, on the other hand, we embrace correction from others, we prove our softness before the Lord and our success is sealed and sure! Page 4 of 7

5 * Before God promotes you in any area of life, he may use someone to first crush you, to see if you deal with the hidden rebellion in your heart... so that He can trust you at the next level where He wants to promote you. He wants you to have the character and maturity to SUSTAIN your promotion, and not fall once you re there. So, He may choose an unlikely person to rake you over the coals, so to speak, that you may humble yourself, and discover the necessary changes you need to make internally in your attitudes and outwardly in your actions. * God WANTS to promote you, but are you PROMOTABLE? * Are you TEACHABLE? * Are you PLIABLE and FLEXIBLE? * Are you READY for the next level? * Will you PASS THE TEST? * Passing your FINAL EXAM is crucial to graduating. 4. Maturity is brokenness of heart that submits to God s Divine Order of leadership in the home, at work, and in the local church. * Stay broken before the Lord. * Stay sweet before men. * Be a team player. * Let God break your independent streak... again and again, should it raise its ugly head. (And it will indeed rise from time to time, no matter how advanced you think you are spiritually!) Page 5 of 7

6 * We must each give account to God. * But we must each realize that God says to be accountable to one another too. God will judge us based on our submissive attitudes towards ALL DELEGATED AUTHORITIES while on this earth. In the home. In the workplace. In domestic governments. In the church. * You can only have WHAT YOU DEEPLY RESPECT! 5. Maturity is the sober recognition that I can t always get my own way. * Immaturity says, I will get my way despite you or anyone else! * Like a child throwing a temper tantrum, sometimes we adults do so too, just a little more secretly or discreetly, or so we think. * The root of all marriage problems, by the way, is the lack of brokenness in a mate, or both mates insistence on getting their own way. The root problem is independence, selfishness and self-absorption. Give up! Surrender! Give in! Yield! * SELF DEMANDS ITS OWN WAY! BROKENNESS WON T EVEN ALLOW ITSELF TO CUT OFF A PIECE OF KING SAUL S ROBE without feeling smitten in one s own heart! Sorry Lord, I ve crossed a line - I ve crossed a line! I ve trespassed a boundary in my heart of hearts! Please forgive! O Lord forgive! (Read 1 Samuel chapter 24.) * My Numero Uno Enemy: Sin. Another Related Enemy: SELF! My Archenemy: Satan. If I can just get SELF out of the way and truly surrender to God, I could get the victory. But have you ever noticed how easily SELF gets in the way once again. It rears its ugly head just when you don t need it! This calls for the patience and persistence of the saints. * The ONLY WAY to develop this kind of brokenness is to spend QUALITY TIME with the Lord in prayer and in His Word, and in His chosen environment (the local church) submitting to a pastor and mutual submission to your brothers and sisters in Christ. There are NO SHORTCUTS! Page 6 of 7

7 * THE WAY OF THE MASTER (The Way Of Brokenness before God) is only obtained by dedication, diligence, consecration, and daily obedience to the Father. You must fall on The Rock, so The Rock doesn t fall on you. You must die to some things and come alive to other things. All other shortcuts are counterfeits and exercises in futility! God is NOT looking on outward observation of being good and doing good, but on inward revelation of submission and obedience to Him. You might be able to fake it and fool a few others, but God isn t impressed... not in the least bit. All shortcuts thwart His purposes! He s looking at the condition of your heart right now! Mine too! God doesn t value what men value. God doesn t see like you and I see. God looks not on the outward appearance but upon the heart! Sometimes DOING GOOD gets in the way of DOING GOD! * The Way Of The Master: Down, down, down BEFORE going up, up, up! * Only him who is entirely broken is eminently qualified. * Brokenness prevents Breakdown. * Humility prevents Humiliation Dr. Dan Cheatham Page 7 of 7