STEEMCHURCH: Levels of Spirituality
In this way someone would describe a reality and I wondered if it was correct to describe it that way.
Particularly I do not like the expression "levels", it sounds like degrees of importance or value, I like it more: "degrees of maturity or spiritual growth"
What is certain, that when we repent and convert, "we are born again", we are born to a spiritual life, we are born of God, and just as when we were born biologically, we had to grow, nourish, learn and develop, equally in the spiritual life , we "feed", "learn" and grow, and so we go through the different stages, (parallel), childhood, adolescence and then maturity.
All the Scripture speaks of the growth of the Christian, we are admonished to grow; Logically, if a baby was born and is well cared for and there is no genetic disease, God expects us to grow up. (if we were born healthy)
"Desire like the children born, the unadulterated spiritual milk, so that it grows for salvation" (1 Peter 2: 2)
"But in following the truth in love, let us grow in all that is the head, that is, Christ" (Ephesians 4:15)
"And may the Lord make you grow ..." (1 Thessalonians 3:12)
There is a parallel between the flesh and the spiritual life, there is only one notable difference, the stages of development in the flesh or in the body are almost marked by time, which always approaches the year begins to walk, (whenever sea healthy), an age is expected to start speaking, then come the age of school and learning, puberty or adolescence, and then it is expected that they will mature, that certain things, it is not acceptable, nor normal, that a 30 year old man behaves like a teenager.
The physical growth has to do with time, the spiritual not necessarily, can not be mature, by seniority in the Church, can be 20 years old and can still be a spiritual child, can have a couple of years as a Christian and be mature
Some have the idea, that they are "mature" for the time they are believers, something like the armed forces, every four or five years it reaches an ascent, it does not work like that in the spiritual.
This happens with the Christians to whom the letter of the Hebrews is addressed:
"About this we have a lot to say and difficult to explain, for how much you have done by being slow to hear, because you must already be teachers (mature), after so much time, you need to get together for the son of the first rudiments of the Word of God, and you have become stories that need milk, and not solid food, and everything that partakes of the milk, is inexperienced in the word of justice, because he is a child "(Hebrews 5: 11- 14)
The "child" can not eat much, can get sick, can be eaten with milk or porridge, needs to be "entertained", pacifiers, diapers and rattles, the "child", cries, must be cared for, treated, sanitized, gives Caprices, requires constant attention.
When you enter the stage of adolescence, you still can not read the same word you express, you can not carry many things, you can not handle it, you have to set certain limits, you have to be behind.
When he grew up and became an adult, he finished the parents' task, an adult son knows what he should do, how much he can help a council, but assumes his responsibilities.
When we see believers "entertained" in the congregations, with music, applause, choreography, blessings, we see great nurseries of children, we feed only with milk, we will not grow if we do not have lasting food, and neither will they grow for time.
In the spiritual a difference of the physical all depends on the desire to grow and the kind of food they give us.
It also refers to the degrees of maturity in his first letter:
"I write to you, CHILDREN ... I write to you PARENTS ... I write to you YOUNG PEOPLE ..." (1 John 2: 12-14)
Sometimes when we teach or indoctrinate in the Church, some get angry, or get upset, I usually say:
The doctrine, the order, the rules not son for "adults", son for "children" and "adolescents".
You should only try to grow and transform into an "adult", in addition to a babbling or crying child is funny and likeable, an adult who does this is a tragedy.