To be mature is to be fully developed, complete, and "grown up." Becoming mature is a process of consistently moving toward emotional and spiritual adulthood. In that process we leave childish and adolescent habits and adopt a lifestyle where we are fully responsible for our own decisions, motives, actions, and consequences.
I heard someone say recently that maturity is developing and discerning competence as to how to live appropriately and to change rightly. In a word, it is stability.
We never "arrive." We are always in the process of moving toward that objective. I have also observed that when maturity is taking place, balance replaces extremes and a seasoned confidence replaces uneasy feelings of insecurity. Good choices replace wrong ones.
Do you have these marks of maturity:
- Concern for others that outweighs personal concerns
- Detection of the presence of evil before it's obvious
- Self discipline
- Compassion and involvement
- Tempered emotions
- Consistently growing in God's Word
How do your "marks" stand up? Will you work on improving them before the next scoring period?
Taken from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. www.thomasnelson.com
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
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