The Word says it, all your bones know it and the storm looms on yonder horizon.  Will we fail to heed all warning, remaining unprepared, without constant prayer or dutiful performance of our commission?  Even the lost see it coming, yet they are without hope.  What then differentiates us from those who do not know the Saviour?  Is it my mannerisms, my character, my adherence to principle?  How weak my understanding of scripture if I believe that it has anything to do with me.  Sealed by the Holy Spirit I have redemption from God.  Dedicated to prayer I have communion and relationship with God.  Armed with the two-edged Sword of God’s Word I am readied for whatever battle shall be sent my direction.  Buoyed by my Faith, the only thing that may please God, I am committed to fulfilling His direction for my life, spreading the Gospel Good News of Salvation and freedom from His Wrath to come.  Filled with His Spirit I wait for the Master’s return.

What is maturity?  I believe maturity is the experiential component of wisdom that allows a man to listen to those who know, love and respect him when it comes to advice of action or inaction.  If you my Brothers warn me against a particular course of action I ought to take that advice seriously and avoid the predicament that invariably follows.  Maturity is a man knowing the right course of action and then executing those steps ordered by the Lord to its fruition.  So, maturity is an idea and an action, and just as faith or love require demonstration to be true and complete.  In this instance it is therefore not enough to know the future God tells us is coming, but I must offer demonstrative action solidifying my maturity into concrete reality.  What then would some mature actions be knowing the coming storm?  The Lord tells us to pray unceasingly.  The Lord tells us to work while there is still light in which to work.  The Lord tells us to write His Word upon our hearts.  The Lord tells us to be ready, knowing that our redemption lies near.  If you aren’t at least doing these then you are avoiding maturity at a time when to do so is tragic.

A willing heart and the faith to lay your problems before the Lord.  God cannot teach the unwilling.  We must be open to His direction, His Word, guidance and yes, chastisement.  This World is not within my power to save.  Billions of humans will go to their deaths never heading the prompting to believe in the Lord and be saved.  Even now, good people have so dedicated themselves to serving self or minor gods in a quest for happiness or a better life that they are choosing separation from God for eternity.  Can I help them through a kind gesture or word, perhaps a good argument for considering God?  God says so.  Can I save them if I sit in my immaturity, knowing the right thing to do but never doing it?  Without faith it is impossible to please God.  We need faith right now to share the Good news of Christ with everyone that we meet.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.  So if perhaps you or those around you do not have faith then the only way they will acquire it is through hearing the Word of God.  Do not pity them standing their with the key to their jail cell in your fingers.  Learn the Word, Know the Word, Share the Word, that is the demonstration of your faith.  In Jesus’s Holy Name I pray for you this day.