Spiritual Maturity: Positive Attitude
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8–9)
The Spirit of God, as he indwells us who believe, draws us to his own heart. The heart of God is pure and holy, so the mature Christian will fill his mind with what is right and good.
In Romans Paul wrote, “If we live, we live to the Lord” (Rom. 14:8), describing the attitude of heart and mind that keeps God as its chief object in thought. Yet our minds do not merely dwell on “God” all day long. We must also interact with life here, and have conversations, thoughts, and reflections. Earthly things will also traipse across our minds — schedules, responsibilities, people, experiences — with all of their complexities and mixtures of good and bad.
The mature Christian must balance all sorts of challenging relationships, but still keep focused on the good, right, noble, and admirable things of life. Paul noted the challenge of this when he wrote: “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:9–10). So we must deal with the sinful world, provide a witness, minister to people caught in sin, yet still “keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
How?
Begin intentionally with the positive: The first thing a mature Christian will do is to intentionally focus his thoughts upon the good and holy. He will choose to have regular time when he communes with God, when he reads God’s Word, when he takes into his heart the things that are true and noble. He will meditate on good things, memorizing scripture, praising and thanking God for his blessings, considering the good traits of fellow Christians.
There is no specific, “one-right-way,” to do this, and Christians are free (but responsible) to do this the way that is best for them. We cannot say that you should spend so many minutes in prayer, so many minutes in Bible reading, so many minutes in meditation, for God does not command it in his Word — and as soon as we do then we will be legalistic. But the patterns of the Bible is to daily come to him, regularly putting aside some time. A few years ago I wrote on the importance of doing this daily — http://nighttimethoughts.org/?m=20100115 — and I believe these words still hold weight.
Exercise faith in God through prayer: In this passage of Philippians 4, the apostle stressed the importance of prayer. There are two weak tendencies people have in prayer and daily life: (1) to pray and have our prayer unrelated from daily life, (2) and to live and have our lives disconnected from the help of God. Prayer and faith should involve daily things in life, and life should involve the things of God and prayer.
I have personally known the bad habit of praying in the morning and then having such a bad attitude toward traffic in going to work that my attitude was fairly negative by the time I got there. This is what we are NOT to do, rather we should pray throughout the day, and live throughout the day in prayer. We should bring everything to the Lord, and then exercise faith in that specific situation.
Know your limitations in dealing with the world: Christ often took his disciples on short retreats as they ministered with him in dire human circumstances, and we need to learn how to step away from world when we have had too much. Not every thing permissible for a Christian to do is always edifying to us spiritually. To the immature Christians of Corinth, who made much of their freedom in grace, Paul quoted their own words back at them and showed how immature they were. He wrote: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (1 Cor. 5:12). Just because I can do something does not mean I should do it.
Television and movies, for example, of today, no matter how popular, have a worldly perspective, often feeding a desire for revenge and violent, angry outbursts. But in scripture God says, “Vengeance is mine” (Rom. 12:19), and a Christian needs to know his limitations in taking in so much worldly entertainment. And the same is true about sexual ethics, alcoholic drinking, eating, honesty, and everything.
In ministering in the field of human trafficking we have specifically realized that people who serve need to know their limitations and need long breaks from front line engagement in the field. In dealing with negative people — and I supposed we all must deal with some negative people in life — we also need to know our limitations. When you feel overwhelmed, becoming angry and negative, run back to the Lord and spend more time with him in prayer, meditation, and the good and beautiful things of life.
Practice Scriptural meditation: Learn the discipline of daily meditation on God’s Word, taking just one verse and thinking about it all day. Meditating through scripture songs is also helpful.
I recall a special day several years ago when, as pastor of a large church, I was stressed out and distracted. I took a few hours off in the middle of the day and went to a park to meditate on scripture. God led me to Psalm 23:1: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” I got no further than that one verse for several hours, but it was a wonderful day, reminding me of the goodness and faithfulness of God to me. He and I spoke to one another for those hours and, as the scripture above says, his peace guarded my heart and soul.
Whatever the things there were that caused me so much frustration that week have long since been forgotten, but the peace with God that I gained that day has remained a precious memory and a standing invitation from God to come to him with my concerns.
Spend time with positive people whom you can trust: God never intended for Christians to be all alone in their Christian walk. Find positive believers with whom you can fellowship and enjoy peace and grace together. Avoid those who gossip and tear others down. Be with those who lift others up.
The peace of God guards the heart of the mature and they are able to minister and to live out of the reservoir of the love and grace of God. We are nothing in ourselves, but in Christ we are his family and his presence. The mature Christian learns to constantly lean on him.
