True Maturity in Christ: It’s Not About What You Know — It’s About What You Do

This is Part 12 of an 18-part series drawn from Kurt Olson's book, The Endgame of God. New posts publish every Wednesday at  GoMultiply.org/blog.

In the building based church world, we tend to measure spiritual maturity by how much someone knows. The Bible measures maturity by how much someone actually does.

I had been following Christ for years before I understood what the Holy Spirit was trying to accomplish in my life — and in the life of every single follower of Christ. I heard a mission leader put it in one simple sentence that I have never forgotten: “Being a follower of Christ is really very simple. You simply let the Holy Spirit make you a little more like Jesus each and every day.” He was right. That is the whole thing in a nut shell.

As disciple-makers, we are not in the business of producing better passive spectator Christian church members — more regular attenders, more reliable givers, more willing (or unwilling) volunteers. Those things are not wrong, but they are not the goal. The goal is Christlikeness. That is where the Holy Spirit is trying to take every follower of Jesus.

Scripture says so plainly. “Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6). “God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son” (Romans 8:29). And the members of the body of Christ are to keep growing “until we all reach... the full and complete standard of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). Read that last phrase again — the full and complete standard of Christ. Maturity is not a head full of knowledge; it is a life that increasingly resembles the life and person of Jesus.

So why are so many sincere Christian church members still spiritually immature? Ephesians 4:11–14 tells us how maturity happens, and it is very clear when we look at the verses in reverse order. At the end of the passage, people are described as “infants, tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching” (v. 14). 

Let’s look at verse 12 to see why God gave the leadership gifts to the church, “to equip his people for works of service.” One version says “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.” The leaders are supposed to equip everyone else — the ordinary believers — to do the work of the ministry. The leaders are NOT to be doing all the ministry themselves.

In most of the church world today we have this backwards: the leaders end up doing the majority of the ministry while everyone else passively observes. And the predictable result? A congregation of Christian spectators that never grow up. Many pastors feel more like babysitters than equippers, precisely because the system being employed keeps everyone immature and dependent on the leaders doing all the ministry instead of equipping everyone else to do it.

People talk about going to church to get fed like it’s a good thing, but the only people in the physical who get fed are infants and invalids. We say we want spiritual maturity in all our people, but we tend to operate in a way that doesn’t actually lead to maturity.

I once was given just 5 minutes to speak to around 500 pastors. I thought, “Why bother? What can I say in 5 minutes?” Then the Holy Spirit gave me an idea so I said, “How many of you feel like a babysitter?” After explaining what I meant, every one of those 500 hands went up. By today, 2026, that 5 minutes led to a connection that has resulted in thousands of New Testament churches being established around the world.

Verse 11 lists five leadership gifts that Christ gave to His church — apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Each is meant to help form well-rounded, mature disciples by equipping the rest of the body to do the work of ministry. But here is a very real problem: most church members only get regular exposure to shepherds and/or teachers. They are rarely influenced by apostolic, prophetic, or evangelistic leaders. No wonder maturity is often lacking or lopsided.

If you only ever fed your child applesauce, they would grow up malnourished. They need a variety of foods for a well balanced diet. The same is true in the Spirit realm. If people only get exposure to teachers, and not to the other gifts, they will grow up spiritually malnourished. That’s why it’s critical for us to find ways to get exposure to all 5 leadership gifts. Because…then we’ll no longer be infants.

Let us recommend that you ask God how and where you can find meaningful, regular interaction with all five. Books, video, and personal interaction are all acceptable. We need all five of them to grow up into the full likeness of Christ. And if you happen to carry one of these leadership gifts, remember what verse 12 says your primary job is: not to do all the ministry yourself, but to equip the saints so they can do it.

Here is a truth that can set people free. I pray it sets you free. Most of us have been conditioned to believe we cannot grow without human teachers — that spiritual maturity is something the experts hand down to us as we fill our heads with knowledge. But that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that human teachers are a genuine gift from God, and we can learn a great deal from them; but they are not the primary source of our growth, and God never intended us to become dependent on them.

Listen to who the Bible says your real teachers are. “They will all be taught by God” (John 6:45). The Holy Spirit “will teach you everything” (John 14:26). “You have one teacher, the Christ.” (Matt 23:10) The anointing (Holy Spirit) you have received “teaches you everything you need to know” (1 John 2:27). Even Paul assured Timothy that “the Lord will help you understand all these things” (2 Timothy 2:7). Your primary teachers are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — and they never take a day off. Human teachers are meant to point you to them, not to replace them.

Be honest about your own maturity: are you measuring it by how much you know, by how often you go to church or Bible study? Or by how much you actually resemble Jesus? Also ask yourself: how much of your learning comes directly from the Father, Son, and Spirit — and how much comes from human teachers?