Acting Like a Man
IllustrationTestimony★★★★I REMEMBER a time growing up when I was sixteen and I wanted my father to let me start doing stuff. My big phrase would always be, “Well, Dad, you know I’m almost a man,” or sometimes I’d say, “In two more years, Dad, I’m going to be a man and so you might as well let me start practicing some of this stuff now.” My dad would always tell me, “When you start acting like a man, then you can do some of this stuff.”
He basically made it his business to inform me that, although I wanted to have the responsibilities of adulthood, I was still acting like a kid. He wanted me to know that I was still riding the fence between two worlds and that I had to get straight which side of the fence I wanted to stay on. In the same way, there are many Christians today who are not maturing. They are not producing fruit that is developing and ripening in accordance with the level of maturity they should have for the number of years they have been saved.
The point
A teenager argues for adult freedoms; his father replies 'Act like a man first, then you can do what a man does.' Similarly, Christians often lack spiritual maturity despite years of salvation. A call to fruit-bearing growth.