| Note – Because Paul has been so unwell, we are sharing these articles from the hundreds of thousands of pages of transcripts and audios of our Lighthouse research, in order to share with you—the reader—what Paul has learned and taught over the last twenty one years. In 2021-2022, the BBC unlawfully obtained highly sensitive and personal data through criminally stolen transcripts of personal and group counselling sessions and misrepresented them to the public in their docu-myth. An act of diabolical pride in and of itself! They will never live it down. They tried to decimate the public’s perception of Paul and all of us at Lighthouse Global, and have only succeeded in making us stronger, Glory to God! They know they wilfully deceived the British and global citizens. Repent! |
I’m going to say something that will sound patronising to some ears, and that’s precisely why it needs saying.
Though it may seem patronising, it is not… in fact, it is a tragic, horrific reality that I need to even say this. It is a shameful reality. I am ashamed I need to even put it in these words, but the reality of our world, especially our Lord’s Body is such: we desperately need grown-up Christianity.
Not a new denomination. Not a new brand. Just a straight statement of what Christianity actually is, and what it calls for.
Because if Christianity is true (which it is), it’s the most grown-up approach to life there is.
Why We Desperately Need Grown Up Christianity
In these last days, we face perilous present and future danger, in all areas of life. Personal, relational, financial, socio-economic, political, etc. The greatest challenges we will ever face in our lives, are headed our way. The danger for us, and why we need to urgently grow up, is because these challenges are far… FAR beyond the current skillset and maturity of the Body of Christ. We are grossly, and devastatingly unprepared.
The Bible says that people will literally faint in fear because of the troubles that are about to occur. (Luke 21:26)
We need to be able to face these challenges and solve these problems. Together.
Therefore not only do we need to be equipped in solving them, we need to find and bring together the Body of Christ-elect as a matter of urgency. Those who will come to Christ must be unified, as the Bible commands us to be. (Jude 1:23).
Compare this stark reality to what many Christians are actually looking for. They want the infantile version — the comfortable version. A once-a-week social comfort model, coffee and sermon, a little moral inspiration, a little reassurance, and then back to their small lives, blind to the reality of the world we live in.
That is NOT Christianity.
Christianity is a call to grow up.
And I mean grow up in the most comprehensive sense — not just emotionally, not just intellectually, not just religiously.
I mean developing the full knowledge, the full skillset, in line with reality, to be able to solve every problem you need to and create the value you ought to. Having the ability to execute on the necessary knowledge and skill required to solve the problems we face.
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)
Satan has induced billions of people into an imperceptible stupor, where we fall far, far below our potential. To accept being in this weak, feckless and learned helpless state is to be complicit with Satan himself. It is not ok to render yourself unprepared, undeveloped and dependent when you have the choice to not be. (Romans 12:2)
Most of us never learned about solving life’s real problems and challenges in school or at home. Our parents almost certainly did not learn this either. That’s not a judgment, that’s self-evident fact. If there’s any wonder why so many Christians feel anxious, worried or inadequate, this is why! Because you know there are so many problems you face that are beyond your control, because you’re not prepared for them. You’re not developed.
One cannot be a true adult at an optimal level without the principle-centredness, the knowledge and executional skills in adulthood.
The highest, broadest, deepest form of adulthood is grown up with Christ; that is a self-evident fact. He is the way, the truth, the life for perfect reason. We live in a world where grown-children parade as adults in our governments, as teachers, as parents and as business leaders. Yet they reveal themselves as the anti-Christian, anti-Christ deluded old infants they really are.
What “Grown Up” Really Means
When I say grown up, I’m not talking about how much you earn, whether you own a house, a car, or whether you have a family.
A person can project adulthood and still be infantile inside — ruled by comfort, unhealthy fear, vanity, avoidance of responsibility, and the need to be approved of, by their peers and parents.
Grown up means you start dealing with what’s real.
It means you recognise for starters, how small and dependent you really are; that you did nothing to come into this world. You, right now, are totally dependent on everything in you and around you working well, just to breathe and read this. Your heart beating, your blood flowing, your eyes working, none of that is in your control. The air you breathe being clean, the fact that this world is spinning, rotating and travelling through space at a rate and speed that most people cannot even comprehend. It’s all happening perfectly on time, on schedule, without you. All these factors keep you alive, which you have nothing to do with.
If you can’t or won’t even recognise just how dependent you are within the realms of interdependency, you’re still a child.
Grown up also means in simple terms, you recognise your need to grow up.
It means you commit your life to what is true and what is real, no matter how inconvenient, painful, and no matter how much you dislike that truth. Because the truth is bigger than you, it is more powerful than you, and that will never ever change.
Let me put it in simple terms…
We are all flawed, we are all imperfect and we all have depraved, angry, lustful, greedy, selfish thoughts, feelings and intents.
A grown up stops pretending that they’re better than they actually are. They accept who and what they are, and get on with genuinely addressing their shortfalls.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9
Jesus said very clearly that HE is The Way, The Truth, The Life. That’s not a euphemism. He’s being literal. A grown up is someone who accepts and embraces that reality. They don’t let their hang-ups and personal biases towards the name of Jesus get in the way of who He truly is.
And because of that, they recognise that they are not grown up. They are deeply imperfect, flawed and far from whole. So they spend their lives growing up in every area of spiritual, emotional, mental and physical intelligence.
The Bible never once refers to those who belong to God as “adults” of God. We are always referred to as “children”… because that is what we are. And as children, it is our duty to get the mentorship, the counselling, the coaching, the community and communion we need to grow up in all areas of life and business.
What It Means To Be A Grown Up Christian
As I have said, but must repeat; grown up Christianity is about solving problems in line with real issues, that are currently far beyond the Body of Christ’s ability to solve these problems. This is the call to live and be a problem solver in line with God’s commandments, edict and charge orders.
Jesus said it plainly:
“Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
Now, don’t mishear that. It doesn’t mean you flick a switch and become perfect in ten minutes. It means the charter is absolute, and it cannot be domesticated into a comforting slogan.
To be perfect is not Christ flattering us. It is Christ calling us out — and calling us up. He wants us to be with Him and our Father, totally perfect! Christ is saying: don’t stay as you are; don’t stay in an imperceptible stupor, the quicksand, the swamp of the fallen self. Don’t get comfortable in it. Don’t make peace with it. Don’t protect it with religious language. “Be perfect” is not a metaphor or an operational command.
The only way it makes any sense at all is in Christ. Not perfection on your own volition — perfection enabled in Him, by the Holy Spirit. If He is calling you to mature, to grow up, to become whole, and truthful and loving in your actual relationships, then He is calling you to a life of growth — reading, studying, learning, praying, bleeding through your eyes and soul, cleaning up, building up, breaking down what needs to be broken down — so that you can increasingly live in a way where you never have to say “no” where you ought to say “yes”… Inside your soul, inside your own home, and outside it, where too many men, women, children and animals are suffering at the hand of the top tier Establishment.
Christianity is not merely going to church on a Sunday and wearing a cross around your neck like some fashion item. It is not singing hymns, nor even studying the Bible each week.
A grown-up Christian is someone who:
- Solves problems inside their own soul, inside their home, and outside, no matter what it takes
- Treats truth as non-negotiable, and accuracy as a form of love.
- Refuses self-deception, because self-deception is the seed of every other deception.
- Stops hiding behind a spiritual identity, and starts becoming what that identity requires.
- Allows Christianity to be demanding of our all, because reality is demanding.
- Stops seeking comfort as the goal, and starts seeking wholeness as the goal.
Christ didn’t tell us to pick up our cross as some philosophical idea. He meant pick up your life, your wrongs, your fallibilities, your inadequacies, all your problems… and don’t let yourself be resigned to a life of mediocrity, selfishness and meaninglessness. He means to become whole.
We come from a spiritual line from Jesus Christ Himself, through so many of His humble and faithful servants; from Paul the Apostle, to Florence Nightingale, William Tyndale, Isaac Newton, Wolfgang Mozart… these were men and women who cherished their God-given potential and chose to share all that Christ gave them to profoundly influence our world. They were not mere participants in it!
Were any of these people perfect? No, far from it… even in his last days, the Apostle Paul battled with the sin in him…
“For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” – Romans 7:15
A grown up Christian is, simply put, growing up in Christ, always.
And yes — it’s confronting.
That’s the point.
The call of Christ does not flatter our egos. It calls us out.
Grown-up Christianity is not accepting of self-deception, because self-deception doesn’t just ruin your life — it ruins your relationships, your capacity to love, your capacity to serve, your capacity to build anything with anyone. All the way to hell eternal.
True Acceptance of Christ’s Atonement – Not Selfish Childish Comfort
“We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” – 2 Corinthians 5:20-21
This is where the atonement of Jesus Christ must be understood as like an adult, not as like a child.
Christ gave His life, through brutal, unimaginable suffering, torture, mockery, abuse, corruption and satanic, murderous hate. How many of us could bear to take the crown of thorns, let alone the scourging, carrying the cross to Golgotha, and being crucified to death?
We were atoned for everything wrong we have ever thought, felt, done, not done, ignored… every affront to ourselves, to God, to this world, to any other human being, even a moment of slight imperfection, He atoned for every single one. Past, present and future.
If we claim that we truly, genuinely have received Jesus Christ’s atonement in recognition of His perfect and holy sacrifice, while refusing responsibility for our lives — while refusing to face our own evil, while wanting the comfort of being “saved” without the cost of being transformed — then we have turned the atonement into permission for self-deception and a one way ticket to hell.
Christ does not call us “basically good.” Christ calls us evil (Matthew 7:11). That doesn’t mean we collapse into despair or self-hatred; it means we stop pretending. We must recognise that our nature as fallen human beings is evil; that we present ourselves as good people, when we are wicked, foul, depraved and degenerate. God constantly reinforces this in the Bible, that not a single human being is good, that our very thoughts are evil. He states this repeatedly from Genesis, through the Psalms, in the Gospels, all the way to Revelation. To deny our evil is to deny what Jesus specifically told us that we are.
This denial of evil goes further than evil then, it is a prime-evil, a resident evil. We are all wicked, but do we admit our evil as Jesus Christ stated? Wickedness is overtly and clearly wrong. Evil masquerades as what is good. We justify our own greed because we’ve had a hard day at work. We excuse our anger because we’re stressed. And most of all, we make excuses for our own weaknesses and do not realise our true potential. If we deny our evil, it goes further than purely evil; it is a prime-evil, a resident evil. Evil by its nature does not recognise itself as wrong. A grown-up Christian can look at the evil in the self, where we reach the point of doing so without flinching, and without making excuses — and then fight it, grieve it, repent of it, and work against it in dependence on Christ.
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13)
Grown-up Christianity is not the fantasy of being sinless by denial. It is the hard, mature reality of being saved by grace while being commanded to grow up — taking full responsibility for what is in us and moving, in Christ, toward the perfection He commands.
I implore you to hear the soulful cry of one of our sisters in Nigeria, who is suffering through fear and terror like most people could never comprehend. Worse, most people will turn away from…
Why People Resist Growing Up
People resist grown-up Christianity for many reasons, but one of the main ones is simple:
It exposes the gap between who we think we are and what we actually are.
Most of us have two assumptions running at once:
- “I’m a grown-up.”
- “I’m a Christian.”
And grown-up Christianity challenges both.
It says: Are you really a grown-up in heart, mind and spirit, as well as your flesh— or do you just look and act like one?
Are you ready to even ask that question, let alone answer it? If you’re not and you want to gloss over it without an answer, that will tell you a lot about yourself right now.
Are you really Christian — or are you treating Christ as a spare wheel just in case this world ends while you’re still alive? Are you just wearing a brand for you and other people to believe you’re a nice person?
Do you think anything more than that standard is extreme? As if Christ’s crucifixion was not extreme? Because it absolutely was.
““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21-13)
I have painfully and tragically encountered people who have claimed Christ and lived in gross contempt of His commandments and precepts. In my service to my Lord, I have been mercilessly attacked by the top tier Establishment and falsely smeared as a cult leader. Why? Because what kind of controlling, coercive Establishment would want their subjects growing up and realising their true, God-given, God-commanded potential as ADULTS? No, this Establishment, under its rulership of Satan, wants Christians numb, dumb, gullible, vulnerable, easily deceived and easily distracted… all the way to hell along with him.
Christianity Is Grown Up
So here is the reality again, because it needs to be said until it hits home:
Grown-up Christianity, because Christianity is grown up.
This is not a nice-to-have. This is elemental and essential for all Christians, to ourselves and to our brethren.
Christianity is THE highest, deepest, broadest standard of thinking, being, feeling and acting in all human functionality. It is the greatest and most substantial form of orientation to the way, the truth, the life: growing up. To have the knowledge, skillset and execution of said knowledge and skills needed, to take on every problem you need to face. Jesus Christ shows us who He is and what is possible.
Grown up Christianity calls you to the highest form of human maturity: to become totally whole, to become totally truthful, to become totally loving, to become totally courageous, to become totally responsible — and to become like Christ. Perfect.
We are perilously close to this entire system collapsing and God’s unrelenting wrath being wrought upon the world. In the book of Revelation, Christ repeatedly appeals to each of the churches He speaks to, to overcome, to conquer; that those who overcome the trials and those who repent from their evil ways, will be counted as righteous. This is the appeal I reinforce to you, my dear brothers and sisters; we are going to have to stop treating Christianity as a comfort product and a personal brand for social credits.
We’re going to have to treat it as what it is:
An urgent call from our Lord to grow up.
Father, please in Your mercy and grace, make us whole. Make us pure. So that we can receive You, and serve with You, and love like You. Amen.
| Paul S. Waugh is a Christian researcher, mentor, and founder of Lighthouse Global. For over 21 years, he has dedicated his life to understanding the root causes of human limitation and developing practical, biblical solutions for realising God-given potential. |
Amen. 🙏 this is a really powerful article and one that I need to take heed of in myself, so powerful to share with the body of Christ who are largely unaware of this and need the support, help, family, community to be able to follow through on exactly what’s being shared here. Thank you Paul and God bless you
Paul, thank you so so much for this, but more so for the years to get here. Thank the Lord Jesus for the reality He is in the first place. I am becoming increasingly desperate to break out of the conditioning and limited existence I have been stuck in for so long. There is so much need in this world, so much that needs answering… especially in the Body of Christ! Thank you Paul. God bless you sir, please heal well. I pray to honour your service and sacrifice, and to God ultimately for what He has done for me.
This is such an important article for anyone inside and outside of the Body of Christ to read and digest! It is an ego decimator and an inspiring call to action simultaneously. A question I’ve been asking myself recently is, “What does it mean to have a new life in Christ?” In response I’m realising that it means becoming grown up, a Christian man mature in all human dimensions; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I appreciated listening to a John MacArthur sermon this morning (Reaching for the Prize) about how when we become a Christian and a true follower of Christ, it is then that we have an insatiable desire to grow. This makes sense… an healthy growing adult wants to mature and grow up, a child doesn’t. Yet I look at an increasingly secular world and culture and the trend is towards immaturity as well as infantilisation. Part of growing up involves learning to solve problems.
This is a reality check of reality checks in relation to being a Christian and the state of the Body of Christ. It is certainly challenging to look at how much I desire comfort and more than I would like to admit to myself.
A powerfully real and much needed article that I and we all in the Body of Christ need to hear. Thank you. We cannot be hiding behind some spiritual identity as a Christian if we aren’t willing to live out what that identity ought to be when held up to scrutiny. We have to ask ourselves, what would Christ be doing if He were here now? Would He be avoiding the evil in this world or going out to meet it! And if we are to be like Him, to be perfect as He Himself called us to be, then we need to start embracing what Christianity truly means in terms of spiritual maturity. Jesus isn’t just calling us out, you’re right, He is calling us up! To look at the evil in the us and hold ourselves to the highest standards he Himself set for us. You’re so right about how this exposes the gap between who we think we are and what we actually are, but I’m appreciating how that’s such a necessary part of the growing up process. To see that gap and know it well, to have an accurate understanding and perspective on ourselves. That’s humility and Christ calls us to humble ourselves so that He can exalt us. God bless you Paul and all who read and embrace this 🙏🙏🙏
Wow—this is such a powerful article. It feels so rich with wisdom and a real call to grow up spiritually, not in a harsh sense, but in the deepest, most grounded way of becoming truly mature in Christ.
There is so much here that you could genuinely sit with in Bible study, personal reflection, or a group setting for years and still keep uncovering more. It spans from our primal responses and resident evil, through to what real maturity actually looks like, to the recognition of ourselves as children, and the way pride resists that growth even when it’s exactly what we need.
Even things like fear, evil, persecution, and suffering—when understood not in a childlike or reactive way, but with discernment (as scripture speaks about the ability to distinguish good and evil)—can actually become the very places where we are drawn closer to God rather than pushed away from Him.
Hebrews 5:14 has been coming up for me repeatedly over the last few days, and it feels especially relevant here in describing that mature discernment that comes through practice and growth.
Thank you for writing this—there is so much here to sit with, wrestle with, and be formed by.
This is such a timely and necessary article for Christianity as a whole, with its urgent call for us to grow up in our faith. Thank you, Paul, for your leadership and for helping us see that our aim as Christians should be this: never having to say no where we ought to say yes.
The more I learn about the suffering in the world, and about the attacks on Christians and the vulnerable, the more I feel a deepening responsibility to step forward and be part of the solution. Real change begins when each of us takes responsibility for our own lives and commits to serving others, both locally and across nations.
God bless 🙏
I see it in Christianity, the overt looking at only the goodness of Christ and what they receive, just as a child would. But walking with Christ is hard, the standard reveals our sin and imperfection, our evil. How can we repent for something we are not looking at? This immature Santa Christ view of Jesus is very inappropriate and dangerous, there will be many who will not get into the Kingdom who believed they would. Their immaturity in the faith is at play here. So critical to focus here and embrace Christianity how it ought to be, an adult pursuit. God bless this work.
Thank you so much Paul. This is a powerful article, one that is hard to read in the way that you are revealing the truth, and the truth is always hard to hear. What you are sharing is critical because without the truth, without doing the necessary work to grow up Christian, we remain old infants. The saying “Growing pains” comes to mind, not the growth in the body physically, but the growth body, heart, mind and spirit, and that means looking at ourselves and being honest and truthful about where and who we are.
God bless you and all of us…
🔥 Thank you so much Paul for this impactful and timely article that every Christian needs to read and inculcate, starting with myself.
I really appreciate that there are two assumptions running within me at once and to admit that the highest form of growing up is Christianity, is a liberating reality to be brought to my awareness. When Christ says in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it,” I am understanding that the challenging road of finding and following the narrow path, holds me accountable to growing up through committed discipleship…growing up in Christ as you say.
I pray for every one of us that truly want to solve our problems in line with the real and inevitable problems we are and will face, that we are compelled to understand what grown-up Christianity means and looks like practically for the glory of God 🙏
Reading the list of problems in The Sum of All Problems – I’m really struck by how Christianity as a whole suffers from those problems, yet Christian’s ought to be the least separated from God. It really shows just how much we struggle to access our intelligence.
Thank you for a very powerful call to grow up and worship God through Christ. It is only with and through Him that I’ll be able to achieve anything. That much is clear and I’ve proven that in my own life.
Lots of love to all who chose to follow Christ and may God bless us all.