The Mature Person’s Way of Living

This is what Saint Clement of Alexandria has to say about the mature person’s way of living. It’s called
“The Perfect Person’s Rule of Life”:

The perfect person does not only try to avoid evil. Nor does he do good for fear of punishment, still less in order to qualify for the hope of a promised reward.

The perfect person does good through love.

His actions are not motivated by desire for personal benefit, so he does not have personal advantage as his aim. But as soon as he has realized the beauty of doing good, he does it with all his energies and in all that he does.

He is not interested in fame, or a good reputation, or a human or divine reward.

The rule of life for a perfect person is to be in the image and likeness of God.

Are we moving towards maturity, casting off everything that entangles us in godless ways? I think it is good to carefully read this rule over and consider our lives in light of this truth. We can pray that God makes us more mature, or perfect. Of course that will involve pain. It will mean being born anew to new ways of living. And as U2 sings, “Yahweh, Yahweh, there’s always pain when the child is born.” First there is pain then there is life.

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