Infant…Still?
Who doesn’t love a cute little baby? Ok, maybe somebody, but most of us love seeing a sweet, innocent little creation of God wiggling its toes. But, I bet 5 years after that baby’s birth, most of us wouldn’t want that baby to still be in the infancy stage. Surely, by now, this child is potty trained and about to be in kindergarten. Surely, this 5 year old can eat with a utensil rather than just sucking on a bottle filled with formula. Not so cute, now!
This is what the author seems to saying in Hebrews 5:11-14 about Christians who stay in infancy: “We have a great deal to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, since you have become too lazy to understand. Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God’s revelation again. You need milk, not solid food. Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature — for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.“
Maybe It’s understandable for brand new believers to need the milk of Truth to be fed to them, but t’s not understandable for someone who was saved many years earlier to still have on a bib! In fact, scripture says, at that point, we are just plain lazy! We still need to be fed when we should be teaching others the basics. As followers of Christ, and as His disciples, we are to grow step by step into His likeness.
The writer of Hebrews goes on in chapter 6 to talk about moving past the elementary concepts of salvation, resurrection, baptism, repentance and judgment into deeper theology and obedience to His Word. More and more, we should be dissatisfied with what we already know about Christ and His Word and seek to grasp more of Who God is. We must be teachable as long as we live. And we should seek to understand Christ more deeply, day by day, so that we live more obediently as we look more and more like Jesus.
No, this doesn’t happen over night. It’s a life long journey of discipleship, but like babies, we should learn to crawl, then stand, then walk, then run. We should drink formula from a bottle, then milk from a sippy cup, then eat solid food with our own fork and spoon. There should be continual developmental progress physically as well as mentally, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.
So, are you making any progress in your spiritual life? Do you continue to find new and deeper meanings of Truth found in the Bible? Do you hear God speaking more and more, “this is the way, walk in it” as the prophet said to Israel in Isaiah 30:21. Are you being continually transformed into Christ’s image?
Right now in the midst of our coronavirus social distancing, what are you doing with extra time on your hands? If you are homeschooling lots of kids, you may have less time than before! But, for all of us, this has slowed some aspects of our life down in one way or another. So this is a great time to assess where we are spiritually and allow God to use this time to take us deeper than we’ve ever gone in our walk with Christ.
We won’t look just like Him until we see Him face to face, but until then, we should be continuing to make progress in drawing closer to Him in intimacy. We should be experiencing His conviction of sin in our lives, followed by repentance and obedience. We should be developing a submissive faith to Christ on a daily basis. We should be experiencing His peace even in crisis…if we are growing from infancy to childhood to teenager to adult.
Are you seeing progress? If not:
- Spend time daily with Jesus
- Get into His Word
- Do what it says
- Learn to pray about everything
- Get into a group for community and Bible study, even if only online right now!
- Serve through your church
Live in an awareness of His presence 24/7. Then help someone else grow from infancy to spiritual adulthood.
If you’ve been growing as a disciple, you have a responsibility to disciple others and share what Christ is teaching you. Move on from the basics of faith, dig deep, and take others with you.
For more on discipleship, here is a series I did on the topic. This is part 1 which links to parts 2-4.
Banner photo by Minnie Zhou on Unsplash
