18 Bible Verses about Spiritual Maturity

Brethren, do not prove yourselves to be children in your minds. As regards evil, indeed, be utter babes, but as regards your minds prove yourselves to be men of ripe years.

We, however, are free citizens of Heaven, and we are waiting with longing expectation for the coming from Heaven of a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the exercise of the power which He has even to subject all things to Himself, will transform this body of our humiliation until it resembles His own glorious body.

Therefore leaving elementary instruction about the Christ, let us advance to mature manhood and not be continually re-laying a foundation of repentance from lifeless works and of faith in God, or of teaching about ceremonial washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgement. And advance we will, if God permits us to do so.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, felt like a child, reasoned like a child: when I became a man, I put from me childish ways.

till we all of us arrive at oneness in faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and at mature manhood and the stature of full-grown men in Christ.

But we shall lovingly hold to the truth, and shall in all respects grow up into union with Him who is our Head, even Christ.

Such persons are mere babes. But solid food is for adults--that is, for those who through constant practice have their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish good from evil.

I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has existed from the very beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and God's Message still has a place in your hearts, and you have overcome the Evil one.

The Spirit, on the other hand, brings a harvest of love, joy, peace; patience towards others, kindness, benevolence; good faith, meekness, self-restraint.

For this reason we also, from the day we first received these tidings, have never ceased to pray for you and to entreat that you may be filled with a clear knowledge of His will accompanied by thorough wisdom and discernment in spiritual things; so that your lives may be worthy of the Lord and perfectly pleasing to Him, while you exhibit the results of right action of every sort and grow into a fuller knowledge of God.

till we all of us arrive at oneness in faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and at mature manhood and the stature of full-grown men in Christ. So we shall no longer be babes nor shall we resemble mariners tossed on the waves and carried about with every changing wind of doctrine according to men's cleverness and unscrupulous cunning, making use of every shifting device to mislead. But we shall lovingly hold to the truth, and shall in all respects grow up into union with Him who is our Head, even Christ.

But these are not the lessons which you have learned from Christ; if at least you have heard His voice and in Him have been taught--and this is true Christian teaching-- to put away, in regard to your former mode of life, your original evil nature which is doomed to perish as befits its misleading impulses,read more.
and to get yourselves renewed in the temper of your minds and clothe yourselves with that new and better self which has been created to resemble God in the righteousness and holiness which come from the truth.

As therefore you have received the Christ, even Jesus our Lord, live and act in vital union with Him; having the roots of your being firmly planted in Him, and continually building yourselves up in Him, and always being increasingly confirmed in the faith as you were taught it, and abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Do not speak falsehoods to one another, for you have stripped off the old self with its doings, and have clothed yourselves with the new self which is being remoulded into full knowledge so as to become like Him who created it.

For although, considering the long time you have been believers, you ought now to be teachers of others, you really need some one to teach you over again the very rudiments of the truths of God, and you have come to require milk instead of solid food. By people who live on milk I mean those who are imperfectly acquainted with the teaching concerning righteousness. Such persons are mere babes. But solid food is for adults--that is, for those who through constant practice have their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish good from evil.

Therefore leaving elementary instruction about the Christ, let us advance to mature manhood and not be continually re-laying a foundation of repentance from lifeless works and of faith in God, or of teaching about ceremonial washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgement.

Rid yourselves therefore of all ill-will and all deceitfulness, of insincerity and envy, and of all evil speaking. Thirst, like newly-born infants, for pure milk for the soul, that by it you may grow up to salvation; if you have had any experience of the goodness of the Lord.

You, therefore, dear friends, having been warned beforehand, must continually be on your guard so as not to be led astray by the false teaching of immoral men nor fall from your own stedfastness. But be always growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be all glory, both now and to the day of Eternity!