Hebrews 5:11-14
11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
On Wednesday at youth he talked about “Hanging out with God”. Basically the more we spend time with Him the more we become like Him. And as he said, the best way to become a better skateboarder is to hang out with Tony Hawk. The best way to be a better Christian is to hang out with God. Go to the expert. Nothing newsworthy, although always a great reminder and really did spur me to think of my study time lately but there was something he said that stood out.
You may have heard many preachers speak on the verses in Hebrews 5 above about maturing in our faith. And when we are new Christians we “drink milk”, or we start out with basic truths and then as we mature, we graduate to solid food, or gain wisdom and then can begin discerning good and evil and digesting more truths of God.
The part that got me was though was when we was talking about maturing and stop waiting for someone to feed you, feed yourself. Just like a toddler learns to feed himself.
I have never thought of that part of growing from a baby to an adult in real life and applied it to being a Christian..that I can recall. For some reason it was a lightbulb moment. I go to church, listen to music, read music waiting for someone to feed me. And yet I don’t take the time to feed myself. I don’t take the time to “hang out with God”. I have to make the effort. I have to spend time with God. Not godly people. Not godly books. Not godly music. And I have to be mature enough to set aside the time to spend with God. Listening. It’s not about going to church on Sunday and Wednesday and waiting to hear something life-changing. It’s not about reading the “Verse of the Day” and being able to connect with it. It’s about becoming like God because we spend so much time with Him.
No, I can’t spend my entire day in prayer. But come on, I can’t even come up with 15 minutes of prayer a day. It’s a sad state of affairs really. I thought after twenty years of being a Christian a may have matured a little and yet I can’t get the basics down.