Move on to Maturity

That We Henceforth Be No More Children, Tossed To and Fro (Eph. 4:14)

I have often heard some people say that once you confess the Lord Jesus Christ, you have “arrived.” They argue that you cannot be wrong anymore, that whatever you say is right, and whatever you do is automatically acceptable because you are now saved forever. But this is a half-truth that misrepresents the Christian journey.

The Christian life is not a one-time arrival but a continuous walk—from immaturity to maturity, from weakness to strength, from milk to solid food. John the Apostle illustrates this progression beautifully. He writes: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). Again he says, “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). Notice the phrase “my little children.” John was not addressing unbelievers who needed repentance; rather, he was speaking to believers—his spiritual sons in the faith. They were saved, but they needed grounding and stability in Christ.

Paul also echoes this reality when writing to the Corinthians: “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). These believers were genuinely saved, yet they remained immature, governed by fleshly tendencies. Paul had to deal with their childishness and redirect them toward maturity.

Peter, in the same vein, exhorts the scattered believers: “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2). Growth, therefore, is expected. Just as in the natural, a child cannot remain an infant forever, so in the spiritual, believers must grow from dependence on milk to the strength of solid food.

From these scriptures, it is clear that spiritual maturity is a process. Believers start in “babyhood”—a stage characterized by weaknesses, mistakes, and frequent stumbling. But this is not a permanent state; it is a stage of learning, a phase where we adapt to the new life in Christ. No baby is perfect in his early steps; he falls, he rises, and he tries again until he learns to walk steadily. Likewise, as believers, we will not always be right; we are not “there” yet—we are a work in progress.

Thus, Paul’s warning in Ephesians 4:14 is timely: “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine…” Spiritual children are unstable, easily swayed, and vulnerable to deception. But God’s desire is that we grow into stability, maturity, and Christlikeness, until we “come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).