Spiritual mastery — an overview

Outside in or inside out?

Going on to perfection or maturity

Hebrews 6:1–3 says “..let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God..”

The word “perfection” can trip us up as it sounds impossible to achieve and we will fail, or like it’s coming from a self-righteous place — something we don’t find appealing. But, just simply drop in the word “maturity” for the word “perfection” and it makes more sense. Going on to maturity is the theme here.

It’s not a self-righteous place where you think you are great and so amazingly righteous that God must just really love you more than others. It means that you grow. You mature. You change. You get wiser as you go. You get better and more refined at forgiving, showing mercy, having faith. You become a Jedi master at the ways of God that work. You begin to have mastery over yourself and become seasoned in the way.

It doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes — not that type of perfect. But your actions are maturing over time. Not stagnating, not going backwards. It doesn’t mean you’ve arrived and look down on others, actually the opposite. The more mature you become the more you realize just how immature you have been and still are. You see your flaws and shortcomings even more clearly. You don’t see yourself as great.

The Inner Man