“as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,” 1 Peter 2:2…………
“I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able;” 1 Cor. 3:2……………
It may sound harsh, but it’s true. Some of us need to grow up, and I of all people should know this – based on my own experience! Years ago, my then husband called me a “baby Christian.” I’m in reality what some call a Messianic Jew, as I’m really a Jewish follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. But his point was right on. I was nothing more than a babe in the Lord, or a baby in Christ, and little did I know what I would come to discover.
Those who repent of their sins and believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is Lord and died on the cross to bear our sins and sin penalty of death, hell, and the lake of fire, and truly devote our lives to Christ, entrusting ourselves to God and His ways, are forgiven by God, promised an everlasting relationship with God, receive Christ as Lord, and are spiritually REBORN. We are BORN FROM ABOVE, or BORN AGAIN, this time spiritually. We are essentially babies in Christ, and we like human babies need to GROW and to MATURE, this time in the image of God almighty, this time not according to the world’s ways, but according to God’s ways.
God not only tells us in His Word through the apostle Paul that we need to grow by feeding on the solid meat of the Word of God, but He makes clear some of us stay like babies, not growing, not maturing, because we are doing nothing more than drinking baby’s milk.
Being born again by receiving Christ as Lord is ONLY THE BEGINNING of a forever journey of following Christ, and we need to leave behind babyhood and study God’s Word and learn to live by it, ever being conformed to Christ and growing up in the image of God.
All those years ago, I didn’t understand how very true it was that I was a baby in the Lord. Sadly, I stayed that way for a very long time. At long last, by God’s grace alone, I turned wholly to God, to His Word, and began the growing we all need to do. Growing in the image of the Lord, growing for the glory of God.
Need to do some growing up? I did! And I still do! We all do – in Christ, for Christ, hallelujah!