Defining Spiritual Maturity
How is it that some people can be born again, faithful church members for many decades and act so immaturely under pressure or in conflict while others who have been believers such a short time seem to reflect Christ so well? It’s because spiritual maturity isn’t defined chronologically. It doesn’t matter so much how long you’ve been a Christian. It matters whether you’ve been growing while a Christian.
I love the way Tony Evans states it his book Time To Get Serious…
So what is maturity? Very simply, it is coming to the place where you think, judge, and react biblically to every situation. When it is the rule and not the exception for you to apply the Bible to your life; when you place every area of your life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ; when you can say in everything, “Here I am, Lord. What do You want me to do?” – then you are a mature disciple of Jesus Christ.”
Spiritual maturity takes time, but not dead time. Maturity requires time in which we are actively engaging our heart, soul, and mind by the challenges of the Word of God and then enduring real life situations in which we successfully apply the principles of God’s Word.
Spiritual maturity certainly is the goal for the believer – total Christlikeness – but remember that it’s not about age or tenure, it’s about our level of Christlikeness.
Brandon is first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ. He's a husband to 
Interesting question, and not one that I’m sure there is one set answer to. Personally, I believe a lot of the immaturity I see in our churches can be attributed to the lack of a regenerate church membership. The older I get and the longer I am in the ministry, the less I can rationalize a regenerate person to a consistent lack of spiritual growth. I think at some point we’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that many of our church members are simply not born again. They may have gotten the head knowledge somewhere along the way, but they forgot the matter of the heart.
Just my .02 cents worth…
A lot of the people have gotten it wrong or, at least, have not gotten it. Maturity isn’t just a list of ideal behaviors. It’s more to do with what’s appropriate, the key being the thought process which leads to a conscious decision. I’ve recently been trying to sort out ‘maturity’ on my own, trying to understand what it is. The problem that I see, is that most people define ‘maturity’ as an opposite of ‘immaturity,’ so that, instead of it being a specific action on its own, it’s just not behaving a certain way. This says a lot, as though we naturally assume the immature actions first, or area always wary of them. But maturity isn’t, as a lot of people tend to assign it, just a matter of being precocious or even cautious.
What we need is a more specific definition of maturity, and not just some general sense of doing good or making good decisions. I don’t think it has anything to do with what you choose do do, but how you make those choices. See what you think about my take on it, in “How to Be a Grownup”