There is nothing worse than an 80 year-old man with the mind of an 18 year-old. I am not talking about the vibrancy and the passion that the youth have, I am talking immaturity.
I will tell you why there is nothing worse, because we younger folk need their wisdom but if they have not matured, it creates a cycle of immaturity that the youth of today will follow.
It also keeps you in bondage to your harmful self. Bitterness is an example.
Bitterness is pain mixed with anger and the Bible says that “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Luke chapter 6 verse 45).
The human nature is carnal. In Galatians Chapter 5 verse 17, it says that our nature is contrary to the spirit. So, if someone upsets us, we hold that bitterness and that creates pain, anger, and our carnality goes to work.
That is quite alarming and is virtually saying that unless we have the Spirit of God, we are ruled by our flesh nature which is contrary to the Holy Spirit.
This means that unless we actively chose to obey the Holy Spirit in our lives then we are under the control of our emotions which you and I know is not a good thing especially when someone hurts our feelings.
So why do we see men and sometimes women still being immature in their older years? Well, I believe it’s because their carnality is in control. This is a lesson all of us should learn.
We have something that the world needs
The fact is we are all spiritual. The Bible says we are, ‘made in the image of God’ (Gen 1:27). This means God himself has put an imprint of himself onto us.
That is why we love our children so much because God is love (1 John 4:8) and he has given us the ability to love our children. We are made for so much more than we realise.
Jesus did not just die and resurrect by the power of the Holy Spirit to just get us into heaven, he died to give us eternal life to reside in us and for us to receive a mighty inheritance from God (Rom 8:17). Eternal life does not begin when we die, it starts right now.
We might still be living on dirty planet earth, but as long as we have the Spirit we live under an open heaven which means we have the potential to bring heaven to where we are and we have the chance for people to encounter The Father through us. But it starts by changing our diet.
How do we change our diet?
Without the Spirit, we were conforming to the patterns of this world—whatever was popular in the world, that was what we did. Just because it is popular it does not mean it’s good for us.
The Bible does not tell us to copy this world, it tells us to ‘not be conformed and to renew our minds’ (Rom 12:2).
This means we need to renew our minds and feed on something different, something the world does not feed on. We need to make sure we renew our minds with the truth, so we know the perfect will of the Father which is what is best for us.
Otherwise if we stay carnal we will be like that hormonal teenager who is ruled by their emotions and not ruled by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the perfect will for us.
If you’re fed up with being angry, struggling and stumbling I want to encourage you today to change your diet.
Ben Kruzins is the Campus Pastor of The Hub Baptist Church in Ocean Shores on the North Coast of New South Wales. He is also a Journalism graduate who has written articles in The Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald.