Never Stop Growing Up

The Big Idea: Entering Christian adulthood means starting a beautiful process that stretches on into everlasting life.

Though the call to Christian adulthood is especially important for youth, it isn’t just for them. It’s for everyone who follows Jesus. We should all be on the path toward “the fulness of the stature of Christ, to mature manhood.”

And, in fact, this is what Christian youth need more than anything else, even more than discussion, exploration, holiness, and prayer. They need a community of adults around them who are committed to growing up in Jesus. They need models of Christian adulthood, people who aren’t satisfied with comfortable or cultural Christianity, people who “press on toward the prize of the upward call.”

This pursuit of the prize of Christian adulthood is never-ending because its goals are infinite, eternal, and everlasting. We will never run out of Christlikeness to gain! When you start down the path of Christian adulthood, you will never reach the end.

For that reason, those who are “mature in Christ” aren’t mature because they’ve reached a certain minimum threshold of Christlikeness. They are mature because they have shaped their lives to keep pursuing more and more of God. Their eyes are always fixed ahead toward the new heights of communion with him. They never stop growing up.

And that’s why the mature Christian life is characterized by childlikeness. Since the mature Christian never stops pursuing eternal things, they understand that, relative to where Jesus would like to lead them, they are always little children. They expect the good and perfect gifts that are up ahead, and they keep running.

Perhaps you’ve met a Christian like this, who, close to their death, is still as young and fresh in their pursuit of Jesus as a child would be. They don’t rest on their spiritual laurels. They know there’s always more of God to gain. And since they have lived in pursuit of Jesus, as active citizens of his kingdom, they know that after their death, they’ll get keep on doing the same things they were doing before it. For them, death is no end, but only a portal into the bigger, better world of God. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, they can look into their neighbors’ eyes with the complete simplicity of love.

We can become like them, if we too start down the road of Christian adulthood, and keep on running without looking back.

“Seek the Lord”

We can become like the childlike, mature Christians who came before us if we live to seek the Lord.

God’s people are commanded, time and time again, to seek the Lord whom we serve. We can live as seekers by always striving to learn more of God’s truth, and to understand the truths we already know better than we do. Such striving begins with finding our questions about God and his world. You cannot seek for what you already have in hand. You seek for things that you don’t have yet. Our questions are they keys that point us toward those new revelations.

This seeking, this question-asking, is an everlasting activity because we will never run out of things to learn about God and his world. On New Jerusalem streets, we’ll keep asking our questions as God rejoices over us with singing. We’ll never stop growing up.

By treasuring our questions and following them faithfully, we can start growing up now.

“Taste and See”

We can become like the childlike, mature Christians who came before us if we live to taste and see God’s goodness.

God’s glory fills the earth, and his image shines in every human. Christians are called to open our eyes to the splendor of his brightness, to attune our attention to the good, true, beautiful, noble, excellent, and praiseworthy wherever it can be found. We should learn to hear the heavens declaring the glory of God, to taste the good food of Christ’s sacrifice, to become our brothers’ keepers. By actively turning our hearts toward gratitude and our eyes toward glory, we can become more joyful, compassionate, and unafraid.

This tasting and seeing, this life of gratitude and joy, is an everlasting activity because God’s generosity and glory know no bounds. On the New Earth, we’ll keep uncovering God’s surprises everywhere we explore, lifting our hearts with expanding gratitude and joy. We’ll never stop growing up.

By treasuring our glimpses of God’s glory and learning to see them in more and more places, we can start that growing up now.

“Glory to Glory”

We can become like the childlike, mature Christians who came before us if we continuously strive to be transformed.

Humans are amazing, but God is not content with our present glory. He wants to see us totally liberated from sin, death, and hell inside us. And, not content with that, he wants to see us everlastingly, increasingly transfigured into his own likeness. His Spirit wants to transform us from glory to glory, and he calls us to participate in that transformation. By joyfully repenting, we can receive his liberation. By joyfully imitating Christ, we can receive his glory in the virtues of our souls. We must root out any impediments to confession and repentance, and accept the call of holiness as our own.

This pursuit of glory, this readiness for transformation, is an everlasting activity because God seeks infinite, absolute communion with us. On the New Earth, we’ll keep being transformed from glory to glory, unburdened by repentance and driven by love. We’ll never stop growing up.

By humbly confessing our sins, actively repenting, and seeking Jesus’ virtues by any means possible, we can start that growing up now.

“Fully Known”

And we can become like the childlike, mature Christians who came before us if we live to receive ourselves, our true selves, from the God who knows us.

Christians are called to found our identities on Christ. His family is supposed to supplant the primacy of our biological families. His kingdom is supposed to become the source of our primary citizenship, supplanting the societies in which we live. And the names he calls us and the stories he tells about us – beloved, baptized, rescued, redeemed – are supposed to supplant the narratives we have received in the world. Learning to live as if these things are true (because they are!) is complex, difficult, and radically rewarding. It requires patient submission to God’s words about us, attentiveness to the lies we believe, and active rejection of our unsurrendered ties to the dying world.

This patient submission to the knowledge of God, this readiness to receive ourselves from him, is an everlasting activity because we are everlasting souls who are absolutely known by a compassionate, sustaining God. In the New Jerusalem, we’ll keep receiving the praise, delight, approval, and work of God. We’ll never stop growing up.

By submitting our identities to his perfect knowledge of us and by actively joining ourselves to the community of his family, we can start that growing up now.

Further Up and Further In

These are activities of everlasting life, and they can start, for us, today. So much of our striving, our worrying, our wishing will pass away, but these pursuits will never die. Imagine how much better your life would be if you were farther down the path of asking questions faithfully, of finding hidden glories, of fearlessly embracing transformation, and of trusting God to reveal himself and yourself to you. Imagine the love, joy, and peace up ahead. For our youth, for our souls, and for the joy of the Lord, we must never stop growing up. Today, together, let’s turn ourself toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, and run.