3 Keys To A More Mature Christian Life

When we receive Christ into our life it is our full intent to follow His lead and obey God’s plan for us. Most of us even dream of seeing fruit multiply like Jesus talks about in the parable of the sower. In that story Jesus describes four different scenarios or soils. Here in Mozambique, where we have been living and serving for the last nine years, we come back to this parable a lot! This concept has been crucial for maturity of the locals faith here!

If you have done any type of discipleship making or even mentoring you can probably relate to the third soil Jesus talks about. He describes it as a field that has seed grow but along with the plant are thorns and weeds. The thorns and weeds choke out the plant so that it doesn’t result in a lot of fruit. Jesus explains it as the things of this world, like money, power, greed, distractions etc… choke out the word, or the seed.

The key we can miss here is that the seed still bears fruit. It’s just not a lot of fruit! The fruit is weak. There is fruit though. What is truly missing? Why is the seed not yielding? Maturity! For one thing the field has weeds and thorns in it. The second thing is the wisdom and maturity needed to remove the weeds and thorns is missing or over looked at best.

Here in Mozambique every morning for the better part of seven months, at the rooster’s crow the people go marching out to their fields barefoot. They have water, maybe a few mangoes, and one tool with them. A hoe. That tool is to remove weeds! They can not sustain life here without that tool! They can’t control the rain and weather, but they can control whether their fields have weeds, and whether they choose to remove them.

So much of our Christian life can be focused on the fruit and how much we can produce. We can overlook the most important, uncomfortable, and not so fun steps that lead to the fruit. For my family it’s been three keys that God revealed to us that helps us assess how we are maturing with Him. I will get to those shortly.

If you long to mature in your Christian walk then their needs to be a greater focus on what produces the Godly fruit, not as much on the fruit itself, which is the result of maturity. Wouldn’t you agree? We will know believers and followers of Jesus by their fruit, but what did they do to mature and bear fruit in the first place?

That’s what I want to highlight and give as practical application for you in this post.

Over the years, especially the last ten in the mission field, as I have sought after the wisdom of God and maturity in Christ I realized that their are four soils in the parable of the sower. Three of the soils come before we even get to the fruitful soil! Let that sink in a minute. There is a process involved to get to the final soil.

In fact three of the soils actually cause the seed to grow! The only soil that does not produce from the seed is the first soil, and that is because the seed is actually stolen before it can die in the soil. It is intruded upon. The other soils bring forth life. Jesus is drawing out a picture of progressing in our walk with Him. Maturity!

Sometimes the things we chase after in life can look good. They can even look great, but are they God putting them there for us? Do you want the good life? The great life? Or the God-given life? I think everyone reading this desires the latter, but their are a couple soils we must work through. We might have to work those soils for a couple seasons, just so we can check the quality of our harvest.

So what are the 3 Keys you ask?

Don’t worry we are getting there. Are you ready for them? They are not all easy, but they are essential to a life of Godliness and fruit that remains. Here they are for you to look at before we touch on each one;

Key #1-Listening for and obeying God’s voice daily

Key #2-The ability and obedience to say no

Key #3-Knowing when it’s time to let something die

Key #1 Are You Listening for and obeying God’s voice daily?

Probably not the three you thought I would write down eh? Let’s get into it!

The first one may seem obvious for maturing in Christ, but you would be surprised how many people would tell you they don’t regularly communicate with the Savior they chose to receive. It’s not just in the West either. This is a challenge that goes back to the Garden of Eden! If Eve, AND Adam had been more focused on what God had said there would have been no confusion on what Satan was trying to accomplish.

In just a moment of doubt on what God said they both started the dominoes falling over. We have been doubting His voice ever since, and He has continued to speak to us. What a good and loving Father. What if Adam had just stopped the serpant and said something like, ‘Hey hold on a second let me confirm what you are saying with my friend, God!’ It might have turned out a bit different.

Anyways, the point is our life in Christ begins with speaking to the Father through Him daily! The same way it was modeled for a short time in the life of Adam and Eve. God desires the same thing with you that He had with them. He sent His son to open that channel and make it forever possible to communicate with the Living God! So why aren’t most of us talking with Him daily? Well, that is for another future post. For now I must simply share this is a key to maturity.

Intentionally wake up with His voice and direction on your heart and mind. Take time everyday to ask Him what He wants you to know about? What He says about you for today! Is He telling you to start a world wide ministry or just pick up the piece of trash in the corner that no one even sees? Our ears must be trained to listen before we can respond with maturity.

A child must learn their parents voice before it learns words. It must learn words before it comprehends sentences. You get the point I’m sure. Let’s go to the next one.

Key #2 Do you have the ability and obedience to say no?

Some of you read this headline and shouted, ‘Can I get an amen!’ Unfortunately if you are anything like me this one can take years to mature in. It can even be down right scary sometimes. Why? Well to say no to something good seems like you are missing out on something! I have never enjoyed saying no to people or good opportunities. I”ll be real after having three boys I have grown good at, as Tim Hawkins would suggest, being the King of ‘No’. This gets really interesting, so to speak, after you have encountered Jesus and received a love beyond measure. That alone can prompt us to want to say yes to everyone.

However just like chocolate every day is not always the best for you. Or is it? Isn’t there a study on that? What I’m trying to get to is that things that are good or great are not always God. And we need to learn to hear God’s voice well enough that saying yes and no to things depends on Him. Why? Because, once we are saved we are to walk by His Spirit and no longer by our feelings, emotions, or will alone.

I have shared with the local disciples here in Africa almost daily that one of the most powerful things they can achieve in their walk with God is to say no. No to what? Now there is the rub. No to the world, no to sin, no to murder of course. How about no to our-self! John in his book, 1 john 🤪 says it like this, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

The top three things he lists off are battles within our own soul! Why? Because we need to grow our Spirit by living in Christ daily, so that our soul and flesh submit to the Spirit of the Living God inside us daily. And Jesus knew how to say no! We often don’t thing about it that way, but it’s true! The book of Hebrews says Christ learned obedience through the things that he suffered.

The only times Jesus did not say no were to the things tied to God’s plan for the world. Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.”-John 5:19-20

He, as our Lord had to say no to a lot of things! In Luke chapter 2 we see Jesus at the age of 12 just about ready to start a global ministry, but instead he returns with his parents to his hometown where he submits to them for 18 more years! Again, Adam and Eve had it all, so we need to look to their life often. When they missed the opportunity to say no to the one thing on the no eat list it ended in a giant failure, for us too! You see our no is not just tied to us! It affects others.

Why is it so important to achieve these keys in our lives and mature? For the sake of the world. Jesus makes some incredible statements in John chapter 17. I could write an entire book on it. If you long for the presence of God in your life I would challenge you to spend an extended time in that chapter alone!

The thing I want to highlight from it that he says is,

“…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

AND, yes that’s not all,

“so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

He says almost the same thing twice! It is differentiated by ‘to know’ and ‘to believe’. Why is that important? In John Chapter 1 Jesus says that His own people did not ‘receive’ Him. Or believe in Him. About the world He says that they did not ‘Know him’.

He continues, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

We have been given the right to become children of God when we say yes to Jesus and no to everything else. Why? So that the whole world will know and believe. That is how important our no is! Let’s summarize, and conclude this point by simply saying let us train our spirit to the point of hearing God so well – Key # 1, that we only desire to say yes to what He wants for us. You never know the world could thank you for it! 😇

Key #3 Are you aware when it’s time to let something die?

I could go straight in to the scriptures about carrying our cross and following Jesus here, however we are going to take more of a group approach here. In Jonathan Cahn’s book ‘The Mystery of the Schmeta’ he talks about some of the agricultural principles the people of Israel were to live by according to their law. One of those was to let the land die, and not be cultivated on the 7th year. It was essential to the multiplication and fruit bearing in future years.

Many of my neighbors here in the village live off their land and have not learned this principle. It has cost them dearly, because they burn their fields at the end of harvest every year to make it easier the next season and to drive out snakes. That constant burning along with never allowing the land to sit quiet for a season has driven their yields way down over decades. I don’t know all the science behind it, but I can connect the dots that their is a time to let things die. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

That wasn’t even in the parable of the sower. This was something altogether separate he said. Jesus was trying to get this point across to us like a hot topic today! As an individual it can be easier to receive that message. In a world that is telling us every day we need to build a legacy it can be a bit more daunting to let things die. You might be thinking, ‘why is this such an important key?’ I may have already lost you even. It’s so important to our maturity because there is only resurrection when there is death. My wife and I have been involved in multiple corporations, church plants, prayer groups, ministries, and even owned our own semi-large business.

In multiple cases when leadership, especially Christian leadership did not yield to the changes God was prompting them to make by His Spirit things fell apart. Did you hear that? When the group did not yield to changing and letting die what needed to, it caused the whole thing to crumble.

God is in the business of resurrection. He sees the things connected to us that can cause premature death and puts a plan in place to have them die before they take us out of his will permanently. The mystery is we have to die to ourselves to fulfill and complete the process. Then he grows something beautiful and fruitful in it’s place. The thing that belonged all the time.

Are we able to let go of our ministry if He asks us to let go? Can we walk away from what we believe we built and what we think we achieved? Can we walk away for the sake of His name and so that the world might know Him? Jesus very early into his ministry was said to not have entrusted himself to them (the world), because he knew all people. He did not receive their praise and chase after a legacy!

I know this can seem easy to ask on my part, but if my family had not learned to let a few things die we never would have made it to the mission field. The history for us and these three keys is on going for sure. We have not achieved glory status yet and we keep getting challenged with all three each year.

That being shared my question still remains can you immediately say, ‘Yes Ian I could let it go, walk away, and let things die if God asked me to.’?

It’s a hard one isn’t it? I truly believe that is why we are seeing so many giants of the faith falling in flames right now. If you are slow to answer this last key question take heart! Death was never supposed to make sense. We were never intended to experience it! Jesus has defeated it, redeemed us, and made a way for resurrection in the face of it. That is the big play! Our faith lies in knowing that if we allow the things to die that He asks of us – that He also has a plan of resurrection.

If you are reading this thinking, ‘That’s great Ian, now what?’ ‘Where do I start?’ We want to serve you with some simple ways our family has grown in these keys. You can start by taking time with God and asking him these three questions:

1- Father God what do you want me to know about hearing your voice daily?

2-Father God what do you want me to know about saying no to things?

3-What do you want me to know about being aware of things I need to allow to die?

Finally, you can always start a conversation with the community here. We are always here to answer your questions where we are able to through God’s grace.

Blessings and courage to you all!

For more information our families mission or to reach out www.compelledones.org