MATURITY EXPOSES SELF
Maturity will be most clearly visible in the way people relate to one another. Bible study habits, church activities, frequency of witnessing, discipline in lifestyle, time spent in prayer, willingness to sacrifice personal comforts, spending patterns–each of these is important, but all can be evident without maturity as their basis . . . A mature pattern of relating involves whatever actions represent the abandonment of self-protection . . . In a word, the visible evidence of maturity is love . . . So much of what passes for Christian community represents the well-developed art of graciously distancing one another for purposes of personal comfort. To love means to come toward another person without self-protection, to esteem others greater than ourselves. . . For most of us, love is not the bottom line; self-protection is. But in trying to find our lives through maneuvering our worlds to keep us safe, we lose our ability to relate in ways that would bring us…
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