What Jesus Said About Maturity

In Matthew 5:48, Jesus called us to be perfect: 
“Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” 
 
Being perfect must be obtainable; otherwise, Jesus would never have urged us to move towards it. We usually think of the word perfect as being exact, infallible, or immaculate. While we think of God as being this way, we know that we will never achieve this kind of perfection in this life. Neither do I think Jesus was talking about sinless perfection. When I look at this verse in context, I think Jesus was saying we need to be perfect in the way we respond when we are rejected, cursed, maligned, misused, and persecuted by our enemies, the way the Father does. 
 
Jesus was teaching us how to react to those who oppose us, reacting the way our Father’s does, so that we can become like Him. He wants us to grow to the place where our character becomes like His character. When we do this, we are acting mature. 
 
This is an important point because there are many in our churches who have the mistaken idea that spiritual maturity is like natural maturity, which comes with age and experience. Yet there are many in our pews who have put in the time and have been to endless meetings; they know the jargon and know their way around church politics, but they are not mature. I would even dare to say that there are pastors who have put in thirty years of ministry who are not the least bit mature. I have also seen some teenagers who act mature. Maturity does not come with age or time spent on the journey or with tenure, but it comes by trying to do what the Father does. 
 
In this booklet we ask the question “How mature are you?” and then look for ways for you to evaluate your maturity.