Of Gifts and Maturity

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)

I feel pressed to help us make a distinction between gifts/ talents and maturity.

This is because many believers are stricken by amazement and shock when a gifted minister falls into a foolish sin or series of sins.

Maturity is unrelated to gifts and talents. Each is in its realm/ domain.

The most immature believers I have encountered over my years in ministry are very gifted.

Look for patience in them and you will dig for miles in depth and never encounter it. Look for spiritual fruit and you will be disappointed, especially from close range.

And it becomes worse when the gift/ talent was exposed early because character (which is what maturity produces) had not gotten the space to grow.

Maturity is the product of a close walk with God. It is a growing sense of who we are in Christ and that only. It is what is developed by a constant intake and obedience to the word of God.

In short, maturity is what is produced in the secret place away from anybody and everybody.

Gifts, on the other side, are visible. They are given for the purposes of visibility.

A miracle worker can never be hidden the way someone praying in the closet is. A prophetic gift must be visible for the same reason.

And it is true with all the other gifts and talents.

The sad reality is that many believers equate gifts and talents with spirituality or even worse, maturity.

Discipleship is what connects them in a healthy way. In my experience I have seen discipleship as the best forum to expose spiritual gifts. And gifts thus exposed thrive without endangering the ones possessing them.

Just like Jesus did.

He spent three (and a half) years growing (discipling) the twelve before releasing them after Pentecost to make use of the gifts they had even as they were being discipled.

It is very sad to see pastors picking on a child (not only spiritual) and lifting them to prominence because they have a great voice or mastery of an instrument.

They do not have any spiritual muscle to handle that publicity and will die like many others from overexposure to the frost of that peak.

Let us please divorce gifts from maturity.

Our generation and especially the media has perfected the art of overlooking maturity for the gift, even in what is called Christian media.

Imagine a youngster entrusted with the responsibility of marital counseling on air just because she has a broadcast quality voice! Imagine a youth giving guidance to his grandparents’ age mates because he is media qualified!

A degree, even ten of them cannot make anyone mature. The first qualification of an elder is age just as a deacon is a man.

We overlook those clear definitions at our own risk.

Maturity is what the Bible asks us to look for in leaders and not gifts. And maturity does not gloat about it. Chances are that he is not satisfied with his level of maturity, meaning he is still growing.

But the gifted rarely realize that they need growth, except the growth in the excellence of their performance, whether it is on the pulpit or otherwise.

They will rarely immerse themselves in the scriptures that will enable them to grow. And they will run away from people who challenge their spiritual childishness.

They will then surround themselves with the enablers of their immaturity, people who do not even know what spiritual growth is and who are wowed by their gift.

Maturity produces and raises children whereas performance (gifts/ talents) yields a product or products.

The next generation is therefore dependent on maturity even as we are focusing all our efforts on maximizing on the products.

In effect we are building factories instead of raising parents since that is what maximizing on the gift above maturity means.

Will we revert to what Christ ordered us in the Great Commission?