by Jerry Senn
Someone has suggested many believers have developed the Peter Pan Syndrome. You remember the little boy who decided he never wanted to grow up, but to remain a little boy forever. Some seem to suffer from that syndrome when it comes to spiritual matters. They don’t mind having a little “religion” once in a while as long as it’s confined to the proper place and time, just as long as it doesn’t last too long or call for any real change of lifestyle. Anything more is labeled fanaticism. After all there is the “real world” to be concerned about.
Anytime someone does something silly or downright stupid, we might be heard saying, “why don’t you grow up?” The truth is we all do silly, unexplainable things don’t we? I guess there’s a part of us that never seems to develop into complete maturity. Growth demands effort.
The Scriptures call for and insist on growth in faith and inward maturity. Just as we desire our children to advance into healthy adults whose spiritual lives reflect Christlike attributes, so too the Father wishes for us to grow spiritually, striving for ever deeper levels of maturity.
Hear these admonitions:
“Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready ... Are you not mere men [and women]?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-4).
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (1 Corinthians 14:20).
“Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults” (1 Corinthians 14:20).
“Building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” (Jude 20, 21).
“The strongest principle of growth lies In human choice.”
—George Eliot