Friday, April 11, 2014

Grown-up Babies


Read: 1 Corinthians 2:6-3:4

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.                      
                                                                                                          1 Corinthians 3:1-2

     As I write, my second son Alex is just learning how to walk. It is funny to watch him because his legs are still stiff and awkward, and his steps are very shaky. Any noise that he hears while he is walking is a distraction to him and usually causes him to lose his balance and fall. But, he is not quite one year old yet, so I don’t expect him to be running around and doing back flips.  As he grows and matures, however, I expect that he will be like his older brother Jackson and be running through the yard in just a matter of months. I would be very concerned if, a year from now, Alex were still toddling around and barely able to walk. I would think that something was wrong, and I would take drastic steps to correct it.
     Too often teenagers are very much like toddlers in their spiritual lives. Most get saved at a relatively young age, and they begin the spiritual growth process. They learn Bible stories in Sunday school and go to every church service. However, much like physical babies are completely dependent upon their parents for their physical needs, they are completely dependent upon their parents’ spirituality to grow in their spiritual lives. They continue to toddle through their spiritual lives well after the time they should not only have been walking, but taking great steps forward on their spiritual journeys.
     We would find it odd to see a physically capable teenager crawling into school or around his house because he lacked the desire to teach himself how to walk. How funny would it look If his mother carried him into school each day because he had no desire to use his own legs? Yet, the world is filled with teenagers who spiritually have not taken their first steps years after they have been born again. Why do we not find this odd, as well? It is certainly not from a lack of ability that they do not have a walk with God. It can only be because of a lack of desire to move forward spiritually.
     In our verses today, Paul was chastising the Corinthians because they were acting as spiritual babies. He wanted to give them what they needed, but he couldn’t because they couldn’t handle it. Likewise, we should be ashamed when we continue to live as spiritual toddlers, unwilling to move forward for God.

 
Quote of the day: “Spiritual maturity is not reached by the passing of years, but by obedience to the will of God.”   - Oswald Chambers



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