The two most interesting periods in a fruit orchard are the time for blossoming, and the time for the ripening of the fruit. Some are more interested and attracted to the blossoming period, when the orchards are dressed in white and pink, but the owner is more intensely interested in the ripening of the fruit, and the amount of the harvest. The same things are true as applied to spiritual life. There is a peculiar charm in the beginning of spiritual things, in our first conversion, or our first experiences in the sanctified life, the opening of the heart to new truths and experiences. It is indeed a period of religious wonder, like the discovery of new territory to the navigator. Then later on there are other forms of interest in the ripening of the graces, in being established in God, and while these later things do not show off so vividly as the earlier experiences, yet the Divine Parmer is especially interested in the yield of fruit from His investment, and as we become like God we learn to put the emphasis on the same thing's that He does. There are certain marks which indicate that the believer is reaching a state of maturity in grace.

The love of obedience is a safe and sound indication that the soul is ripening in the work of grace. In our earlier days we are wonderfully taken up with the promises, and with the bright prospects that the promises hold out to us. And these promises never become less interesting, only as we advance in the knowledge of God. We come to appreciate more and more the law of God, and we put the stress on loving that law, and on the spirit of obedience, and on watching for every expression of the authority and will of God as expressed in His law or in His providence. Obedience is the supreme test in the life of faith, and the love of obedience is the highest of all. In the natural life we know the children always want a lot of fine promises, and they don't seem to appreciate the spirit of obedience to parental will, and so it is in the spiritual life. In the case of Jesus we find that, from His childhood, the spirit of loving obedience, both to the divine Father and earthly parents, was the supreme element in His life, and when we are conformed to Him we watch diligently for any token of the divine will concerning us, and there is an increasing joy in obedience to that will.

If is a token of maturity to have a firm conviction of oneness with Christ, that in the light of His Word and of the knowledge of our own hearts we are firmly bound up in the bundle of life with God, and with His Son Jesus, in such a way that our love is one with His and our will is thoroughly yielded to His, that the inner movements of our spirits correspond with the movement of the divine life and purpose, and that our ultimate destiny will be/ to share with the Lord Jesus in all that is His, When the water in a mountain stream reaches the ocean, it enters into oneness with the sea, partaking of its saltness, its temperature, and all the movements of its tides and billows, and in like manner our inner spirits are to become one with Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit, so that we share the temperature of God's feelings, and the movements of God's purposes, and the salt of divine keeping and vigor in preserving the soul from langor and death. Most Christians are for a long time seeking for various blessings, but when they enter the true death to self they become taken up with divine union, and find that God is their joy and their life.

Another token of spiritual ripeness is that of assured knowledge in the things of God, the settled and abiding assurance of the perfect salvation of Christ, the purification of His blood, the infallibility of His Word, the distinctness of the personalities of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the perfection of God's providences and the perfect assurance that everything will turn out just the way the Bible declares. In our earlier Christian lives there is a great deal of reason, and more or less speculation, and a good deal of inquisitive curiosity, but when we ripen in the love of God, curiosity passes away, speculation ceases, and our reasoning faculty seems to have finished its task and all our mental being settles down into well-defined, clear, cloudless, positive assurance on all matters concerning God and His revelation of unquestioned truth. The Apostle John in his writings sets forth this phase of holy life more than any of the Bible writers. In Paul's writings there is a tremendous power of argument and reasoning, and with Peter a large element of exhortation, but John, more than any other inspired writer, simply affirms, in the most emphatic and positive manner (whether he is treating of the nature of God, or of Christ's character, he utters truth in its ultimate and perfect form of solid, bed-rock, incontrovertible fact), that God is light, and that he that hateth his brother is a murderer, and that perfect love gives us boldness in the Day of Judgment. This is why mature saints talk less and argue less than they used to, because they have passed out of the period of discussion into the region of ascertained truth, and live in a constant open vision of the divine life.

Another evidence of the ripening of grace is that of quietness of spirit, freedom from being agitated over the things of life, the unaccountable doings of men, or the surprises in divine providence. If we study the history of how God made the world, we find that the progress was from a state of confusion to a state of uniformity, and from various upheavals in the strata of the earth, to a smooth and noiseless ongoing of the forces of nature. Well, there is a great likeness between how God made the world and how He makes a saint. A mature believer will notice how imperfect Christians are full of curiosity over many things in Scripture and in nature, and are easily agitated, and have so many questions they want to have explained, and many things that seem so important are mere little nothings to the soul that has been tried in the fire and found its deepest rest in the quiet depths of the divine mind.

Another token of maturity is that of watching for the things of God in the little points of life. An old scientist will strike the trail of some natural law in a little phenomenon like the buzz of a fly, or the fall of a leaf, while the young students would not notice; and an old millionaire will watch how to save a nickel or a cent where a poor man would not think of saving a dollar; and in like manner a mature Christian will watch the little things that may cause him to lose grace on the one hand, or that may enable him to find some fresh knowledge of God on the other. A ripe saint, who keeps his ear close to God, will catch faint whisperings where other Christians are expecting a thunder peal, and he will detect little sweet intimations of the divine will where most Christians would see nothing at all. Thus with the increase of quietness in God, there is at the same time an increasing delicacy to the divine touches and the looking for heavenly things in the smallest details of life. This ripeness of grace cannot be produced by our own will power, but is reached by the operations of the Holy Spirit, and reached by His taking the soul through a definite process of salvation, and purification, and testing, and training, and hence we are to be utterly yielded to our Heavenly Father in a life of prayer, and let Him work in us to will and to do His own good pleasure.