I remember the day that we gave our first daughter “solid” food. By solid, I mean a jar of pureed vegetables that we would never dream of eating ourselves. We got the camera and video camera ready, made sure the lighting was just right, dressed her in a really cute outfit and put on a color coordinated bib. We were so excited that our baby was no longer just a milk drinker, she was a food eater. This day was going to be epic. Anticipation rose at the pop of the baby food jar being opened. Her eyes got big and a smile appeared on her face as my wife took a big spoonful of green slime and moved it to her face. Her mouth opened wide and the spoon went in. Time froze as we waited for her response. Her expression went from joy, to contemplation, and then finally to total disgust as her tongue exploded green back out of her mouth and onto every square inch of her face, bib, and that perfect outfit. Her journey from milk to solid food had just suffered a setback.
In my experience of investing in people of all ages in their spiritual walk, I have consistently asked, why don’t people’s lives represent their relationship with Jesus? Why are people who go to church live with more compassion and love for the people around them? Why do people in church represent selfishness and entitlement instead of gratitude? The even more confusing part of the answer to these questions is that when I ask these people how they would rate their spiritual maturity most would give themselves at least a 7, if not an 8 or 9 out of 10 in spiritual maturity. Something doesn’t make sense. I believe a root of the problem is an issue that is paralyzing the impact of American Christianity in the 21st century. We have been interrupted on our journey from milk to meat.
Many times Christians will use Hebrews 5:11-14 as a tool to judge people who are not at the spiritual level they perceive themselves to be. In Christian circles, people can even use this verse to condemn others or label them as “nonmeat eaters.” I believe that for American Christianity to begin to regain influence in our country we must humbly look at our journey from being a milk drinker to a meat eater.
First, we must admit and acknowledge that it is a journey from being a spiritual milk drinker to a meat eater. It is easy to understand this with an actual baby. You don’t feed a baby milk for 6-9 months and then immediately cook up a steak and start feeding them steak, you introduce pureed green vegetables, then after weeks you introduce small pieces of fruit, then a little bit larger pieces of nonblenderized food, and finally over time your baby/toddler is ready for real food. The same is true for Christians. We must understand that it is a journey from spiritual milk to spiritual meat. It takes time. It takes small steps. It takes consistency. I fear that American Christianity has not effectively helped our people to make this journey. I fear that we have left the majority of Christians as spiritual babies.
Keys to the Journey
- TIME: It takes time to move from spiritual immaturity to maturity. New Christians are awesome! They have just been forgiven and been made new from the inside out and they want to learn everything that they can about this God who loves them so much that He would send His son to suffer and die for them. They are spiritual sponges. They are energizing, they are growing, and listen to whoever will teach them. Many times out of a misguided perspective someone will say, wow you are so mature or I know Christians who have been Christ followers for years that are not as mature as you and in that moment the new Christian starts to believe that they have arrived and don’t need to push further. True spiritual maturity takes time. It doesn’t happen in a week, a month, a season. On the other side, some of us find ourselves being Christians for years and realizing on the inside that we haven’t grown much since those first days, but we have rationalized that since we have been Christians for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, we must be mature. A quick evaluation of where you are at would be to honestly answer the following questions.
- What have you read recently from the Bible (not in church)?
- If someone wanted to become a Christian what would you tell them?
- If someone was dealing with a conflict in their life what specifically would you point them to?
- What are spiritual disciplines that you practice at least once a week, once a month?
- How much do you give financially and time to the local church?
If you had trouble answering these questions, do not condemn yourself or take a big bite of pride and think that you are busy or past these things. Simply humble yourself and clearly define where you are at. The most difficult DTR conversation you ever have will be the one you have with yourself.
When you know where you are at, you can do something about it. If you can humble yourself and admit it, you will find freedom. Remember it takes time, lots of time to mature.
- Be Messy: You have to be willing to get messy if you want to move from drinking spiritual milk to eating spiritual meat. Remember how a baby not only gets itself completely messy in those early days, it gets everything within a 10 ft radius completely slimed. I remember the days where it too longer to clean up from a meal than it did to feed the meal to our girl. Don’t be afraid to get messy as you grow. In our current culture, new Christians want to know what does the Bible say about homosexuality, racism, abortion, pornography, other religions, who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. We have to be willing to have the messy conversations. Personally we have to be willing to let the Holy Spirit rewrite what we thought was right in our spiritual infancy as we grow in our relationship and maturity. This will mean we may be asked to change our positions on controversial topics in our culture. It will get messy both internally and externally. As you grow as a spiritual meat eater you must choose to put your personal opinions on the table and give Jesus permission to rewrite them with His Truth. Many Christians choose to stop their spiritual maturity because they are not ready to give up their personal stance on an issue that is important to them.
- Make a Plan: Spiritual maturity doesn’t just happen. I love the phrase – failing to plan is planning to fail. Many times a Christian’s maturity fails because they fail to plan it because we believe that it will happen naturally or we will make time for it when things slow down. Growing as Christian can be intimidating – does it mean I need to wake up at 5:00 AM and read the Bible for an hour, go to church every week, join a Bible Study, serve at church once a week in the kid’s ministry, help the poor, and give at least 10% of my money to the church. Wow, that seems overwhelming and exhausting and that doesn’t even include all of the things I need to stop doing because they aren’t what a Christian should do. My advice to new Christians and Christians who are rediscovering that they are still on milk is to make a plan and introduce one discipline at a time. Make a plan. Start with reading the Bible three times a day and going to church at least 3 times a month. Two weeks later, month later introduce giving of your time or resources into the growth process. Two weeks, a month later find a small group of people or Bible Study where you can ask questions and learn from each other. Make a plan when you will add disciplines into your life and I believe you will find strength and freedom and sooner than you think you will find that you understand the Bible yourself, that you see your prayers being answered, and that you see your life is impacting people in significant ways.
- Better Together: To grow spiritually, you need to be around people. Part of spiritual maturity is to learn from people ahead of you and to pour into the people who are one step behind you. God knows that we need the humility of being around someone who is smarter and further down the road than us and the responsibility of being a mentor/influencer to someone who is behind us. When we position ourselves this way we will have healthy tension and accountability in our lives. Active community is imperative in moving us from spiritual milk to spiritual meat.
The journey from milk to meat is not an easy journey. It is designed for the person who wants to know who they were made to be. The journey builds discipline and strength that the mature use to impact the world for Christ. This generation needs more people willing to take this journey. Consider joining the 100s of people who are saying I’m in and putting aside their misguided definitions of spiritual maturity to jump into a messy, long term, and powerful journey. This world needs you. The person you were made to be, is begging you to make this journey. You can do it.