Last Sunday I felt like God showed me a little bit about spiritual maturity, and today I revisited it with Him during my time of prayer. This is what I was able to put together out of it. I hope this helps you on your journey toward Godliness.
When we come to recognize our sin and need for a Savior we enter a stage of recognizing Grace. In this stage of sanctification (being set apart from sin, and being made holy unto God) we are learning what God has done for us. This stage leads us to a recognition of Gratitude. It is the maturing outgrowth of a recognition of Grace. We live more thankfully before God. We bring our needs to him with thanksgiving, grateful that he hears us and loves us; not because we've earned or deserve it, but because we have received Grace.
This Gratitude stage, when we've matured in it, activates Generosity. God's people should be the most generous in the world. But we can't get to true generosity until we've matured in Gratitude. Our gratitude puts into perspective how much we have to give away. We realize that it is better to give than to receive. We understand we have received Grace freely we can freely give it as well. Generosity when it fully matures activates new understandings of Grace and the cycle begins again leading us to deeper and deeper understandings of Godliness lived out in our life through Grace, Gratitude, and Generosity.
What stage are you in? I find that in the people I worked with over the last ten years often short-circuit before making it to the point of activation and end up coming back to a place of Grace to mature again. Anytime we stop growing in Godliness we must re-enter at the starting point of receiving Grace. Those that truly grow and mature are those that mature in the process of Grace, Gratitude, and Generosity.
--Ben
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