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Posts Tagged ‘maturity’

Confident Assertions

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

We live in an age of the church, where there are all kinds of speculations about the end times. There are speculations about who is prophetic and who is apostolic. There are speculations about Israel, a new temple, and red heifers. The writing of books regarding those speculations are endless. The number of podcasts and youtube videos of everyone’s thoughts on these issues is staggering. And everyone’s thoughts are mixed with some level of partial truth.

The thing that is scary is that many people are not grounded in the Word, and are easily swayed by speculative teaching. We are told in Ephesians that there is a fullness and maturity in Christ that we need to attain to, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming”.

1 Timothy 1:5-7 “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith. Some people have strayed from these things and have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions”.

Confident assertions!!! Confident assertions are presented as something that is true. Someone might say that “God showed me this” when they are making these assertions. It might be a book, it might be a video, it might be a podcast, it might be on CBN or the Victory Channel and it might come from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

All these assertions are mixed with some level of truth, maybe even a some scripture reference. And a lot of it is pleasing to our ear. We must grow to maturity in Christ, to the fullness of Christ. We must have the mind of Christ; we must judge all things by the scriptures.

Millions of prophetic websites, teaching videos and books are a very poor replacement for the scriptures. They are not enough! They will not give you the depth that meditation on the scriptures will give you. If we fail to know the scriptures, and to know God, we will be swayed by every wind of doctrine that comes our way.

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Be Ye Perfect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on December 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I have always wondered about the verse in Matthew 5:48, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. How can I be perfect? We read in Ecclesiastes 7:20 “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins”. That is me, I follow Jesus, but I am not perfect, I still have “little foxes” that I deal with. Yes, we are made perfect through the blood of Christ, but we are still maturing as we walk along “the way”.

This brings to mind the verse in 2 Timothy 2:15 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth”. We are at a disadvantage when we study the scriptures, since it was given to us in Greek and there are many different translations. That is not a bad thing, it just means that we have to be more diligent and “handle accurately the Word of truth”. For me it means studying the Bible, looking at different translations and try to understand Greek words. This is very helpful in understanding what the Bible says. When one looks at the Greek word for “perfect”, the eyes of our understanding will be opened a little.

The call to “be perfect” is a directive that follows Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, where He outlines the attitudes and behaviors expected of His followers. The Greek word for “perfect” is “teleios,” which implies completeness or maturity rather than flawlessness. This phrase suggests a call to spiritual maturity and moral integrity. In the context of the Sermon, it follows teachings on love, forgiveness, and righteousness, indicating that perfection involves embodying these virtues fully. The use of “therefore” connects this command to the preceding verses, which emphasize loving one’s enemies and praying for those who persecute you, suggesting that perfection(maturity) is linked to love and mercy.

So when we read that we are to be “perfect”, it means we are to be “mature” in Christ. We are told in Hebrews 5:14 “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil”. Also in Ephesians 4:-16 “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love”. We are to grow to be a “mature man” in Christ.

There is much to say about being a “babe” in Christ vs being “mature” in Christ. Paul, in all of his letters addresses this problem. In 1 Corinthians 3:1 Paul says, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ”. I encourage you to study 1 Corinthians.

Let us “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”.

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