"We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there. "
Ephesians 4:14
GROW UP!
Read It: 1 Corinthians 3:1-3
How do you know if you're growing as a disciple of Jesus Christ? How -do you know if you're moving along at the proper rate of speed given the time you've known Christ? According to the Apostle Paul, you need to take a close look at your diet and your discipline. The first three verses of 1 Corinthians 3 tell us that what you are able to digest and the way you behave say a lot about your spiritual maturity or lack thereof. Just as it's possible for our physical development to be arrested and stunted, Paul says it's possible for Christians to have arrested spiritual development. It's even possible for Christ's disciples to start looking and acting like "mere men," that is, non-Christians. Now some professing Christians look like non-Christians because they actually are. One of my great concerns as a pastor is people who only think they are saved and use the excuse that they are carnal to justify their sins. Joining a church or signing a card does not aChristian make. But there are genuine disciples who have been born again and aren't living like it. If you came to the nursery at our church in Dallas and saw baby bottles and baby food jars, saw kids fighting over toys or whatever, you wouldn't think twice on it. Babies need milk and baby food and toys.
But if you walked into a class of college-age young people or a class of married couples and saw people drinking milk out of baby bottles and fussing and fighting, you'd first double-check the class name on the door, and then you'd probably check out! Well, that's what the Corinthian church looked like spiritually. And sad to say, that's what a lot of churches today look like. Jealousy, strife, and immaturity are as alive and well in the church of the twentieth century as they were in the church of the first century. Do these verses describe you? I sincerely hope not. Check your spiritual tual diet and discipline today-and if need be, get rid of any baby bottles you see setting around. Think About It You can't become a disciple of Jesus Christ without responding to His call to forsake your old life, take up your cross, and follow Him (Mark 8:34).
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