Skip to main content

Milk: When Steak is Offered, it Just Isn't as Appealing

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.

Hebrews 5:12b-14

After spending significant time writing about Jesus, our merciful and faithful High Priest, the writer of Hebrews turns to give his readers a good old fashioned wallop over the head.

Here is King Jesus who is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature” who even “upholds the universe by the word of His power.” (Hebrews 1:3) He rose from the dead! He lived a perfect, sinless life on earth for thirty-three years! He is kind of a big deal! And He wants His creation to know Him and experience sweet fellowship with Him. Here is the Word of Righteousness that the Hebrew people ultimately are unskilled in knowing and understanding.

Why, O, why settle for milk when you can go out and find meat? Why settle for a sippy cup when you can eat a bacon-wrapped filet with garlic mashed potatoes? Obviously, it is preposterous (and hilarious) to think that any of us would be willing to go back to baby formula now that we have fully-developed teeth and have tasted the melt-in-your-mouth goodness of “grown up” food.

But, the writer of Hebrews isn’t talking about food. He’s talking about spiritual things, which is pretty normal in the Bible.

If we laugh at the thought of needing our mom to feed us after we’re grown, why do we walk around as spiritual infants who need constant protection and guidance because we’ve failed to start obtaining our own food? It is the same exact thing! In fact, it is worse! I shudder to think of the evil that is present in this world. I shudder even more to think that there are so many people who are living in this darkness who have no ability to nourish themselves with the Word of God because they’ve never sought spiritual food apart from a Sunday church service or a couple of short prayers at dinner. These things are good, but they won’t keep you from getting trampled by all of the busyness and temptations of this world.

Please don’t misunderstand. I am not saying that we are ultimately in control of obtaining spiritual food. God provides all that we need. However, if we are not seeking the nourishment that only God provides, then we will be stunted Christians who never reach their full potential in Christ. God will finish the work He started, but we should be eager to know Christ more and more every day. This only happens by spending time in the Word with Jesus. As our hearts grow fonder of our Lord, we enjoy better and better nourishment, which equips us to face even greater suffering, which God has granted to us for the sake of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:29).

And when you come to God and let Him speak through His Word, He doesn’t demand that you know what you are doing. He just wants faithfulness. As you are faithful, God will convict and correct and encourage and refresh your soul. You’ll find through your faithfulness that you are getting to know He who is faithful and unchanging in that faithfulness. When you begin savoring that reality, your joy will increase and your face will shine with the glory of Christ.

All of that simply because you set out to read the Bible and get to know God! What a great God!

Take a moment to consider what God’s Word promises. If you have never read Psalm 19, I encourage you to read it and marvel at your Creator.

God’s Word revives the soul, makes wise the simple, causes the heart to rejoice, enlightens the eyes, and is just plain awesome! Ok, so that last one isn’t written in the Bible, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true! God tells us that we should cherish His Word more than gold and that when we enjoy His Word that it is sweeter than honey. He promises that there is great reward in knowing and keeping His Word in our hearts and following His commands.

The greatest reward is that we will come to know Jesus who shed His blood and died for vile sinners like you and me who openly rebelled against Him. We will come to know that He loves us beyond our comprehension. We will come to know that He is passionate about and jealous for us. And we will know that He is preparing a place for us in eternity where we will see Him face to face and be overwhelmed by His goodness.

Milk drinkers: Given what you now know, can you still settle for milk?

Steak eaters: Can you believe how good God is to reveal Himself to you through His Word?!

For the glory of Christ.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

  “Where grace exists, it reigns.”   C. H. Spurgeon I’m scared of grace.   And this realization comes in the midst of a journey I’ve been on that has the fingerprints of God all over it.   If we were to gather 50 Christians in the same room and invite people to share adjectives that come to mind when trying to describe “grace,” I doubt “scary” would be anyone’s answer.   (It probably wouldn’t be mine either, in case anyone is thinking I’m exalting this term in some sort of holier-than-thou way.)   We’d hear things like amazing, undeserved, free, kind, love.   Of course, it’s inevitable that the crucifixion of Jesus is vocalized in some way.   Essentially, we’d have a huge list of very positive and affirming adjectives that rightly depict the wonderful activity and riches of God’s grace.   What if we asked a slightly different question?   How would we answer, “how does a person obtain grace?”   I’m guessing we’d start throwing out an...

God's Truth vs. Satan's lies Part 2

written August 25, 2008 A good friend of mine reminded me of something that I had been losing sight in these writings and in my life that I feel is necessary to address. The life that we Christians live is a direct result of the real and active relationship with Jesus Christ. Christ is alive in my life today and every day. I have been moving away from this idea and writing about God making Jesus seem far less important than in fact He is. It is only through Jesus living in my heart here and now that I have any hope of connecting with the Father. For this reason, I fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith. I don't wish to think or speak in generalities, but speak in the name of Jesus, for it is He who saved my life and lives in my heart revealing God's Truth. Lie: Small compromises in my thoughts and actions are no big deal. I can still keep "innocent" worldly things in my life and be ok. I cannot count high enough to tell you how many times I ...

A Convicting And Compelling Gospel

Which adjective in the title more closely aligns with your predisposed way of thinking about and speaking the gospel to yourself and others?   Are you more likely to present a gospel that is heavy on the convicting realities of sin, righteousness and judgment?   Or do you find yourself more readily appealing to the benefits of following Jesus?   If you think about it, neither adjective fully encapsulates the message of Jesus.   It’s right to compel people using the promises of God and the joy filled benefits of a life submitted to Jesus.   But it’s also right to warn of the consequences of rejecting Him.   Since we’re all naturally inclined to emphasize one, we need to allow the other to constrain us, to balance us from taking our natural disposition to the extreme, which may confuse the gospel and the Jesus we wish to present.   Let me attempt to illustrate one example of an unconstrained leaning toward each in turn.   A compelling gospel that is...