CONCERT OF PRAYER

Pray Week 826

“Grow to Maturity”

Heb 5:12-14 (ESV) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

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Tevye: As the good book says, when a poor man eats a chicken,one of them is sick.

Mendel: Where does the book say that?

Tevye: Well, it doesn’t say that exactly, but somewhere there is something about a chicken. Good Sabbath!    – from Fiddler on the Roof

As humorous as some of Tevye’s dialog is it strikes a sad chord of truth about the Christian church body today.  Far too many are content to accept as Gospel truth whatever they hear about what God’s Word says.  In extreme cases the faith of some Christians has been shaken because they bought the lie from movies and documentaries that have discredited Biblical Truth about Jesus Christ.  Others have experienced undo worry and serious consequences from their actions stemming from the belief that the end of the world will occur on a certain date and time.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.  – 1 John 4:1

Babies are cute and some of my fondest memories as a parent are that of bottle feeding my children or grandchildren.  It is no longer cute to imagine bottle feeding them as adults.  We expect our children to learn to feed themselves and grow into mature adulthood.  It is the same with spiritual growth and maturity. Being a Christian is more than salvation and a ‘get out of hell free’ card.  We have an obligation as Christian’s to grow into spiritual maturity through study of God’s Word and become equipped for service in the Kingdom of God.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh.- 1 Cor 3:1-3

God has provided the framework for the spiritual growth of His saints through the church. It remains every individual’s personal obligation to deepen their relationship, knowledge and understanding through daily Bible reading, study and meditation on the Word of God.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes;…they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. – Eph 4:11-14; Acts 17:11

May you have a hunger and all eagerness to spend quiet time alone in the presence of God as you feast on the real food of the Truth of His Word.