“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” 1 Corinthians 13:11
I remember coming back to Christ. I was a young man in search of direction. I didn’t know it at the time, but God also was purging me of some pretty bad habits. I remember selling material possessions, things I loved early, just so I could pay for gas and go to work and school. I remember learning to eat, not the high-end groceries, but squeezing the absolute most out of 20 dollars so I could eat for a few weeks, while still being able to eat healthy enough to function. I did without. Essentially, I had to grow up quick and cut out a lot of junk from my life. And, over the years, I’ve had to mature more and more, learning to live within my means, while paying off my debts, and behaving like an adult.
Loved ones, I say all this because Jesus seeks to fix our problems, and sometimes, that growing and maturing process looks like humble pie. Christ seeks to mature us, but we can’t mature if we’re still living like lost boys in Never, Never Land. Part of following Christ looks like modeling Christ in every aspect of our lives, and putting away childish things, as the Apostle Paul puts it. We’re to seek to model Christ in every aspect of our lives showing believers and non-believers alike what it means to follow Jesus. We should seek to be mature, growing ever toward Christ Jesus, so that we could also help others out of the slump we found ourselves in, once upon a time. Loved ones, this does not mean we shouldn’t enjoy blessings, but it does mean we should seek to honor Jesus in everything we do. Let us, together, put away childish things, ways, thoughts and reasoning, and seek for maturity in Christ Jesus that will help lead others to His amazing grace and mercy.
Hebrews 5:11-6:12
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 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.
6 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
