Two weeks ago… Ramon Torres, the Senior Pastor at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church shared with us a very important bible lesson in his Sunday sermon, “The marks of spiritual immaturity,” how to recognize them, and why so many Christians haven’t been as mature in the faith as they probably should.
Let me echo this message.
There are marks of spiritual immaturity clearly stated in the holy bible (1 Corinthians 3:1-9) and he nailed it. After hearing him preach on this topic, I said to myself, “I need to write about it in my blog because I believe that he was inspired by God with that message.”
So, let me share with you what scripture teaches us about spiritual immaturity first followed by the notes of two dreams I had on the topic. Be ready, this post will make you think and is likely to make you uncomfortable, perhaps a bit scared.
A clear sign of spiritual immaturity is pride. Infant believers are often not living according to God’s commands, which often leads to arrogance, lacking humbleness and often resisting the authority of God. Pride is a cancer that can destroy the very best, quickly. When we find pride, we find immaturity. Proverbs 16:18 – Pride [goeth] before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Jealousy is also a clear indicators of spiritual immaturity. Mature Christians are occupied with doing things that relate to God not men. Immature ones often focus their energy on attacking others, directly or indirectly, because of what they have or could have. The moment that the immature in Christ allows jealousy to consume her thoughts and actions, her mind, heart and life often pays the price. In fact, the former is quite easy to see among many church goers these days. Job 5:2 – “Surely resentment destroys the fool, and jealousy kills the simple.”
An immature believer is filled with strife. Generating false claims about someone and purposefully disagreeing with others with the intent of having conflicting opinions with them for “winning” sake is often a consequence of pride. As we have pointed out in this article, price is a cancer that can destroy the very best. Generating discord or disunity, sometimes isolation is not what God has planned for us to do with each other at all in his church and out. One cannot be spiritually mature behaving this way. Philippians 2:3 – “[Let] nothing [be done] through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”
Idolatry. Steve Jobs was a great leader but he wasn’t God. The moment that a person looks at a leader, person of influence, etc… as if he or she is a half god, chances are very high that this person is spiritually immature. We can’t honor God and money. We can’t worship God and Krishna. It is not possible to love God and any corporate leader in this earth simultaneously. A spiritually mature man or woman understands this simple fact. 1 Corinthians 10:14 – “Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.”
Living according to the world is also a sign of the spiritually immature. Seeking to live in Lavish houses, owning expensive cars, living life for money to do this, seeking more money to do that and forgetting God… Buying your way into a college or treating some well and others not with the fear of being reprimanded by an influential group are also signs of spiritual immaturity. If anyone has an obsession with wealth, they don’t live for God. A spiritually mature Christian doesn’t allow the world to sway him from what is important to God, which is total submission to God’s word. Be aware of those who claim to be godly people but mistreat the brethren for self again in the church and out. John 4:5 – “They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.”
Are you spiritually mature or immature? Let’s do some retrospect about the former by relating what we are to the way that God asks us to be.
All right…
Now let me type in here the notes I got from two dreams I had relating to the topics we have discussed in this post. Are you ready? Here we go. *By the way: The notes below were written at 3:30am in the morning both times, right after I woke up from these dreams.
“Write more about the glory of God (not giving glory to other human beings) in everything and the dangers of pride. The dream appeared to be a dream about how christians would be tortured (or pay) for their sin until they got it right in the heavens. Write about salvation in Jesus Christ alone. That’s a condition of salvation. I saw lost sheep (higher up clergy and Protestant pastors focused on money), in a sadistic place where a Christian had no way out. It was four layers down in hell.
I saw the disguise of a Christian act, repeated torture… knowing part of the answer to salvation allowed me to wake up. In the dream, there was a need to be grounded in scripture for your own sake and knowing the answers about what God wants us to know found in the Bible. Don’t lower your guard.
Scripture stopped an evil spirit from eating my right finger. I heard, “What God can give, He can take it away.” My cry for help didn’t work initially but I was able to wake up to to deep bible understanding. Live upright according to the bible and perhaps know that God paid a big price for our sins.
It was clear to me that both dreams had a clear message for us all, “Live upright and live grounded in the Bible.”
Know the Bible, apply the many Bible lessons, God doesn’t help sinners. I saw lie being used as a weapon for false hope (many times) and disguise to test your belief and convictions. Lukewarm is not enough.
Be patience. Don’t trust too quickly. Don’t rush. I saw the need for people to take anxiety medicine to take spirits out. I saw evil ants entering me and people I know, including my mother. Nobody could see what we saw or believed us. Our belief in God killed the ants, shortly.
At first I had no control over such attacks. Scripture was the only way to flee such attacks.
Devils were not able to function when I was patient and calm and trusted in God in the dream. When I resisted a sexy naked women who was tempting me, made the evil go away. I said, “This isn’t cool. Nobody should show their nude appearance too quickly to anyone. Wait women, patience.
I then was found myself wondering in the ocean with big waves in dark trees. My thoughts were focused on remembering trust and patience. Two weird creatures (angels) gave me the answers to escape the nightmare but they were not very clear. I think I remember the need to be patient in life.
These dreams were reminders that faith wasn’t enough. “Try to fight me with that only and see if you are going to win,” the devil said.
Literally surrender to God. Calm down and apply the faith. In my two dreams, it was clear that the depth of our faith matters. Be fascinated with God not anything else. Pride, living according to the world, idolatry… they lead to potentially having believers going to hell if they weren’t strong in the faith and truly applying what they believe.
I mean, everything.
Two weeks ago… Ramon Torres, the Senior Pastor at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church shared with us a very important bible lesson in his Sunday sermon, “The marks of spiritual immaturity,” Pride, jealousy, strife, idolatry and living according to the world are signs of spiritual immaturity. There are consequences for not doing what God tells us to do. My dreams were clearly a reminder of that, I think. I saw pastors burning in fire for greed. I heard the need to be patient in life and letting God work in our lives and much more.
In sum: It pays off to be spiritually mature and apply the lessons found in the bible for our own sake. Ladies and gents, let’s make God a priority in this world and the next. It seems to be the right thing to do.