Milk or Meat- Determines Babies Defeat

3 Part Series

Part 1

We all know that every child is different. They all develop at a different pace. Some are early developers: They talk early, crawl early, walk early, etc...

I raised 3 sons and each is as different as night and day and they always have been. They even crawled different: One crawled normally after he’d rev up his engine first by getting on his knees and hands and rocking back and forth...like he needed a push start or something. One inch wormed, One rolled everywhere he went.

They began walking at different times, talking at different times, they had different tastes in clothing, hair-cuts, interests, and temperaments.

But there was something that they all had in common. None of them could eat steak and potatoes when they were 2 weeks old!

Babies all start out drinking milk! A baby’s stomach and gastral intestines are not developed enough to produce the enzymes needed to aid the digestive process, A baby is also much more likely to choke on solids.

All babies start out on milk or formula alone. After time they then finally graduate to eating regular foods as long as they are cut up into small bites and then eventually they grow up and begin to inhale foods like a whole bag of chips at one seating with a whole two liter bottle of coke and a whole pizza on the side....with a giant burp when they have finished to let you know how much they liked it.

Just as babies mature and develop at different paces so do Christians grow and mature in much the same way. When we accepted Christ into our lives we did so as baby Christians, and each of us develops into maturity at different rates.

Just as you would not feed a baby solid foods upon its birth neither can you feed a baby Christian solid theological meat, they need milk-discipleship, mentoring, love, patience, foundational teaching... nourishment for their souls. If you try and feed them deep theological principals before their spiritual digestive systems are ready they won’t be able to swallow it without choking. And if they do manage to swallow it chances are they will not digest it properly. That is they will not understand it nor apply it to their everyday lives.

The difference between a baby Christian and a physical infant is that you can always count on the fact that the infant IS going to mature and begin to be able to process solid food and mature into an adult. A three-year old, unless there is a medical problem, is going to be more developed than a two week old. And a six-year old more than one that’s three.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case with Christians as there are many people in the church that have been baby Christians for 40 years! You see a baby Christian is not necessarily a child. They can be 5 years old or 85 years old. They could have been a Christian for 5 days or for 50 years!

Many times, it is a matter of the person having no desire to mature and they just prefer to keep drinking milk because it’s easier to digest than meat. It is easier to hear about salvation and Gods love than to hear that they should forgive their enemies and pray for those that hurt them.

It’s easier to drink down God’s grace than to chew on the principle that they should shun the very appearance of evil.

But the truth of the matter is that if all they ever do is drink milk eventually they will starve to death and die a slow spiritual death and if they don’t die spiritually they will become dried up useless bones.

The Kingdom of God needs Soldiers who can run through and troop and jump over a wall. Not babies constantly needing coddling, cleaning, and burping.

To be Continued...

Rita Sanders