Spiritual maturity looks like: going to people, and bringing the love, and the compassion, and the anointing of the Holy Ghost; and pouring it into their lives. That's what spiritual maturity looks like. It doesn't look like: you prophecy well. It doesn't look like: you do all kinds of church things well, that's family business, but it looks like: you go to people, and you help people who desperately need help. That's what spiritual maturity looks like. That's what the heart of God looks like. That's why Jesus told this story. I just kind of feel to hang out in this story of the Good Samaritan, I'm just getting so much from it. So what about these two - the priest and the Levite? Well they were the church of the day, and the church of the day walked past the broken, the needy and the wounded; and would not cross over, and be engaged in being part of the solution.
The church of Jesus' day had the Bible, had the promises, had all kinds of things; but they did not have the heart of God for broken, damaged people; and so Jesus told the story, to actually confront what the church of His day was like. It was not connecting to those who were wounded, and desperately in need of healing. Why is it we need to learn how to move in the spirit, and prophecy, and operate in the gifts of the spirit? So when we engage people in need, we have something to give to them. Why do you need to get trained, to flow in the gifts of the spirit, and the anointing of the Holy Ghost? So you have something to pour into people God is sending you to. God is sending every believer, every believer, God sends us somewhere into this community to influence people; and to do it, you have to enter their world. So what about these religious people? They had too many hang ups, and things in their life, and so they did not catch the heart of God.
They actually hid away from being involved with the broken. They disconnected from the broken, and I want to just touch on that for a couple of weeks; and we're going to go into Genesis, Chapter 3, and pick up this whole theme of fig leaves. I want you to see something about the fall; Genesis, Chapter 3, Verse 7. After Adam and Eve had sinned - before they sinned, they were able to relate freely one to another; then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and so they did something. They sewed fig leaves together, and covered themselves up. They became conscious of something. They became conscious of themselves. There was no self-consciousness before then, no shyness before then, no bad relationships before then. They covered themselves with fig leaves, then they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God.
Now I want you to see two things in there; number one is, they put on fig leaves. In other words, they covered up what they were truly like. They covered themselves, and withdrew from intimate connection, or heart connection, one with another. A consequence of the fall, is a struggle we have in being genuine and authentic, and connecting with people just as we are. We tend to want to cover ourselves up, put on a good front, an image - but God is not interested in image. He's not interested in fig leaves. He is wanting you to be authentic. He has a provision for you, where you don't have to cover up your life, you can live an authentic life, and authentic people are able to connect with others. People who are covered up, and all of their life is damaged, broken and they're living with most of their life covered, cannot enter into close relationships. Notice the second thing they did, they hid. They avoided connecting. When God came, they avoided connecting, so what they did was, they constructed a world in which they could control their connections.