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Every Christian must eventually face the question: What does it mean to grow up into Christ? For some, the answer is implied; they assume time + Christianity = maturity. But time does not sanctify you any more than sitting in a garage turns you into a car. Others assume information leads to maturity: good preaching, a solid podcast, regular Bible reading, and well-written books. But information without transformation merely adds weight to an already overstuffed conscience. Still others believe serving makes them mature; they pour themselves into ministries but rarely stop to examine whether they have the character to sustain their pace. Maturity is not activity but alignment—your character, theology, capacity, and service all bending toward Christ in both seen and unseen ways. If any of these areas are immature, the others will feel the strain.
So how do we know if we’re maturing? How do we discern whether Christ is being formed in us in ways that endure? The Scriptures do not give us a list to check off but a life to imitate. The process of Christian maturity can be understood through four sequential questions: Who am I? What do I know? How do I live? Whom will I serve? These four questions shape the contours of a mature Christian life, and they remind us that discipleship is not a formula but a formation. It is a shaping of the inner person that makes the outer life reflect the inner reality.
Christian maturity begins where life begins—with the heart. When God regenerates a person, He does not start by polishing external behaviors but by implanting a new heart (John 3:7). This new heart is not the improvement of the old but the creation of something entirely different. It is a heart awakened to God, sensitized to truth, humbled by grace, and capable of transformation. Yet this new heart does not mature automatically. Just as a newborn requires nourishment, environment, protection, and ongoing care, a new heart requires shaping influences that draw out its Christlike potential.
This need is where the work of putting off, renewing, and putting on becomes essential (Ephesians 4:22–24). These movements do not occur independently; they form a single rhythm of spiritual growth. To put off without renewing creates a moral vacuum. To renew without putting off creates layers of conflicted desires. To put on without either creates artificial performance. Christian maturity is rhythmic, not mechanical. It involves the whole self, surrendering old patterns, receiving new truth, and obeying with increasing joy. If one of these movements is neglected, your character will stagnate.
Your character is not what you do but what you are. It is the soil from which all decisions, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors grow. You cannot mature on a foundation of weak character. A person who avoids correction, resents confrontation, hides weaknesses, or resists accountability cannot progress into deep Christlikeness because pride chokes transformation at the root. God shapes our character through His Word, His Spirit, His people, and our circumstances. Each of these influences exposes our neediness and reminds us that maturity begins with humility. Character cannot be assessed from a distance. You cannot test it through personality profiles, ministry resumes, or social media snapshots. You learn a person’s character the way you learn the seasons—by living within them long enough to see how they respond to heat and cold, drought and rain. Character is revealed, not reported.
A spouse sees it. Close friends see it. Children see it. God certainly sees it. And if you desire to grow in maturity, you must allow others close enough to see it as well. Christian maturity begins with a heart that is soft toward God and soft toward others. It is a heart that welcomes correction, receives truth, repents quickly, forgives freely, and desires holiness more than comfort. Without this kind of heart, theology becomes an academic exercise, service becomes self-advertisement, and capacity becomes comparison. But with this kind of heart, you become the kind of person God delights to shape.
Though character is foundational, it cannot grow without truth. Everything we know about God comes from God’s Word, His revealed Truth breathed out for our good and transformation (2 Timothy 3:16). Christian maturity requires theological clarity. You cannot imitate a God you do not understand. You cannot worship a God you do not know. And you cannot trust a God whose character is fuzzy or negotiable in your mind. Theology is not the hobby of intellectual Christians; it is the lifeblood of every Christian who desires stability, joy, and perseverance. To be mastered by Scripture is to submit your mind, desires, assumptions, and instincts to the authority of God’s Word. This process begins with study, a slow, steady, humble engagement with truth.
But it deepens further with meditation, memorization, and prayerful obedience. The Spirit of God works through the Word of God to transform the people of God. When Scripture fills your mind, the Spirit illuminates connections between truth and your lived experience. He convicts, comforts, corrects, and conforms you to Christ. Without a steady diet of Scripture, you will rely on emotional impulses, cultural narratives, or personal instincts to navigate life. These sources are unreliable at best and destructive at worst.
Memorization is one of the most neglected forms of Christian growth, yet it is one of the most powerful. When you memorize Scripture, you carry the truth with you into conversations, temptations, decisions, and anxieties. Your mind is washed, recalibrated, and steadied. You begin to think God’s thoughts after Him. And when dark nights of the soul come, when suffering blindsides you, when grief suffocates you, when fear threatens you, the memorized Scripture becomes the rope that keeps you tethered to God. Yet theology is more than information. It is transformation. True theology produces worship. It humbles the proud, comforts the broken, strengthens the weary, and empowers the obedient. When theology becomes an exercise in knowledge accumulation rather than personal change, it ceases to be theology and becomes intellectual idolatry. But when theology fuels reverence, repentance, and obedience, it becomes one of the clearest signs of Christian maturity.
When you grow in character and grow in theology simultaneously, you become a stable person. You become one who is not tossed about by cultural winds, emotional storms, or personal disappointments. A theologically grounded Christian is a mature Christian because truth is the anchor that holds the soul steady.
Christian maturity also involves understanding your God-given capacity—your unique mix of strengths, weaknesses, sensitivities, limitations, and natural inclinations. Every person has a unique soul, the way every person has a unique body. We each carry different emotional thresholds, mental bandwidths, relational needs, and personal burdens. Ignoring capacity leads to comparison, discouragement, pride, or burnout. Embracing capacity leads to humility, peace, gratitude, and wise stewardship. Paul speaks tenderly about the “small-souled” person in 1 Thessalonians 5:14—the fainthearted, easily discouraged believer whose emotional capacity is fragile. A mature Christian understands that not everyone processes life the same way. Some believers are deeply reflective; others are energetic and outward. Some move slowly; others move quickly. Some need more relational reassurance; others need more structure. Some are easily overwhelmed; others are wired to handle more intensity. None of this is right or wrong. It is simply part of the diversity of God’s creation.
Maturity discerns these differences without judgment. It refuses to pressure yourself to become someone you’re not. It refuses to pressure others to become carbon copies of your preferences. God does not sanctify you into someone else; He sanctifies you into the best version of who He created you to be. Christian maturity involves cooperating with the Spirit to refine your capacity rather than resenting it. It also involves loving others according to their capacity rather than yours. Understanding capacity helps you resist the temptation of comparison. One believer may handle ten responsibilities while another struggles with two. One may process grief slowly, while another may process it more quickly. One may have the mental endurance for deep theological study, while another engages Scripture through shorter meditations.
Maturity does not demand uniformity; it celebrates unity within diversity. You are not called to become someone else. God calls you to become faithful with what He has entrusted to you. This realization brings incredible relief. It frees you from self-imposed burdens and others from your expectations. When you stop trying to live someone else’s life, you can finally live the life God has assigned to you. And when you stop expecting others to mirror your strengths or minimize your weaknesses, you begin to love them with a Christlike patience that builds community. Capacity is not about how much you can do but how faithfully you steward what God has given you. Maturity means living within the constraints of your design without apology or resentment. It also means stretching where the Spirit prompts, growing in endurance, and embracing sanctified discomfort when necessary. Maturity is neither lethargic nor frantic. It is steady, honest, self-aware, and surrendered.
Christian maturity always bends outward. If character is the root, theology the nourishment, and capacity the structure, then service is the fruit. A Christian who does not serve is like a tree that grows leaves but never produces fruit. Something vital is missing. Service is not optional; it is the natural overflow of Christlike maturity. To love God is to love others. To know Christ is to serve others. To be filled with the Spirit is to pour out for others. A non-serving Christian is a contradiction. The gospel does not produce spectators but participants. Christ, though equal with God, emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, and humbled Himself to the point of death (Philippians 2:3-11). Maturity means joining Him in that descent. Instead of grasping for privilege, we embrace sacrifice, not seeking personal glory but seeking others’ good.
Yet service must flow from character, not merely skill. If you isolate service from the inner person, several distortions emerge. You can become a performer: skilled, admired, productive, but spiritually hollow. You can become self-centered: using service as a stage to showcase your competence rather than as a platform to glorify Christ. You can become driven by selfish ambition: working not to bless others but to validate yourself. Or you can become a ministry machine: busy and celebrated but emotionally absent, spiritually shallow, and relationally frail. The church often mistakenly elevates gifted servants without examining their character. Someone can teach, organize, lead, or counsel with great effectiveness while harboring hidden sin, fractured relationships, or unrepentant pride. This type of service brings temporary results but long-term damage. True Christian maturity integrates character, theology, capacity, and service so that what you do flows naturally from who you are in Christ.
A mature Christian serves out of joy, not pressure; humility, not pride; compassion, not ambition; faith, not fear. Their service is not frenzied but faithful. They understand that Christ does not need their service, yet He delights to use them. They recognize that service is not about showcasing their gifts but magnifying His grace. Christian maturity is not linear. These four areas of character, theology, capacity, and service develop simultaneously and influence each other continuously. Weakness in one affects all the others. Strength in one helps strengthen the others. You cannot isolate your spiritual life into compartments. You are a whole person growing into a whole Christ. If your character is weak, your theology will remain theoretical, your capacity will become distorted, and your service will become self-centered. If your theology is shallow, your character will lack conviction, your capacity will be shaped by cultural assumptions, and your service will rely on human strength. If your capacity is ignored, you will compare, resent, or overextend yourself and others. If your service is absent, your character becomes introspective, your theology becomes academic, and your capacity becomes self-serving.
Maturity requires access. You must know others and allow others to know you. You cannot grow in these four areas alone. You need people who see your blind spots, challenge your assumptions, encourage your growth, confront your sin, and support your obedience. If you truly want to mature, grant trusted friends access to your life across all four areas. And give yourself to others with that same kind of access, becoming the kind of friend who strengthens their faith and deepens their joy in Christ. Christian maturity is not about perfection but direction. It is not about never failing but continually returning to Christ when you do. Maturity is less about how far you’ve traveled and more about the One toward whom you’re moving. As you grow in character, theology, capacity, and service, Christ becomes your treasure, your reference point, your interpreter of life, and your aim. Maturity is simply this: Christ formed in you.
Christian maturity does not happen accidentally. It is not something that sneaks up on you while you live the Christian life on cruise control. Maturity is the cumulative result of many small, hidden, Spirit-enabled choices: choices to humble yourself, to receive truth, to stay honest, to persevere, to surrender, to obey when obedience hurts, and to love when loving costs something. Before you move forward, pause long enough to let the Spirit search the four corners of your soul. These questions are not meant to condemn you but to guide you into deeper Christlikeness.
Maturity isn’t discovered in moments of triumph but in the quiet decisions of ordinary days. It grows in the soil of humility, truth, honest community, and joyful service. Let the Spirit take these questions and press them gently but firmly into your soul. The goal is not perfection but direction. And the direction is unmistakable: Christ formed in you.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
