Are you ready for this?

Yesterday was a really weird day...my personal prayer yesterday was that God would guide me in how I use my time.  Well, in my morning work time I shuffled some of my schedule around to meet with someone who needed to share some news with me.  So God answered that prayer.  Then later in the day a brother pastor and I were discussing preaching and what the messages look like and what needs to be in them and all that.  We landed on the fact that the message of the gospel is critically important to the content of a Christian's life therefore that has to be present! 

Let's jump to this mornings' time with God.  I didn't deviate from my normal reading schedule at all - it's as if God just led me right to this passage from Hebrews 6:1 though.  It says, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation... 

Now admittedly this passage doesn't tell us how to preach or share our faith with someone - it says to distinguish between who still needs the bottle and who is ready to pick up food from the table and start nibbling at it.  I'm reminded of my daughter.  She is 10 months old and is still on bottles, but more and more she's experimenting with different foods from the table.  We give her foods that she can easily gum down and swallow. 

Is this what God is calling us to do here in this passage as well?  Is God leading us, as believers, to know our friends-coworkers-family members-neighbors-enemies-and fellow parishioners enough to know who is ready for the food from the table and who is ready for a little more and for that matter who needs the bottle still?  I think that might be exactly what the author of the book of Hebrews is getting at here. 

Now let's not take this out of context!  We must remain true to the message of Jesus and clearly communicate his death and resurrection.  We still must remind people that we are all broken and that God alone can put us together again.  We must preach the gospel in all of its truth and purity.  I think the call here is to take the message of Jesus one step further.  We should probably be able to answer a couple of questions about the gospel as we prepare to share its message:

• How has this message changed my life?
• In what ways and places do we see Jesus doing something big in my life? 
• What prayers have I seen Jesus answer?  

As we go through these, among other questions, we're getting closer and closer to moving beyond the milk and getting at the solid foods.  Today I'd like to lay down a bit of a challenge - starting today pick one verse from the bible (I don't care what verse it is) and read it enough times that you know it pretty well.   Write it down on a note card or business card and carry it around with you.  Spend time through your day going back to it.  Re-read it.  When you're driving to work or back home, turn the radio off and use that verse as a starting point for a prayer.  Let the words in that verse be more to you than a bottle of milk - use them as your main source of food, strength, comfort, and wisdom for today.  Then repeat it all over again tomorrow with a different verse.

This doesn't take a HUGE amount of time.  It's actually pretty simple, and before you know it the bible becomes more than a Sunday morning text book - it becomes a part of you.  That's what it means to move beyond the basics and into maturity. And it applies to all of us, not just our pastors or teachers.  God calls all of us to be mature in our spiritual walk.  We all need to be on solid foods sooner rather than later.  Mature people don't wait for someone else to feed them, they know where the food is and go there regularly and on their own.  And what's more - they feed themselves!  As believers we have a lot of choices to make when it comes to our faith.  We have the choice to eat from the message of the bible everyday or we can starve from  Monday through Saturday as we wait for someone to feed us on Sunday morning.  I can't make the choice for you.  No one can!  Each of us, in response to God's work in our hearts, is being called to respond in faith and move beyond our childish ways to a life of maturity in the Spirit. 

Lord - sometimes it's easier to be a child.  Everything was done for us, but it's not ok to stay a child forever.  Help us to grow up in our faith.  Move us from a weak faith to a strong faith.  Move us from milk to solid foods.  Help us to take responsibility for our own spiritual walk.  Lord lead us to the pantry of your word, to the table filled with the things of your love.  AMEN.