by Ken Thomas
As we pass from one year to another, the suggestion is made that we are "older, but wiser." Hopefully that is ture. In the Christian life we are expected to grow and improve. However someteimes we are like the man who applied for a job claiming twenty years experience. One who knew him well denied it. "He doesn't have twenty years expereience--he has one years' experience repeated twenty times." As Christians, are we passing time, or are we gaining experience?
Hebrews 6:1 teaches Christians to go beyond first principles as they "press on on to perfection or "full growth." Hebrews 5 reveals that the original readers could hardly understand many important things since they were "dull of hearing." They had had enough time to develop as teachers but were still in need of learning the basic principles (milk) of Christianity. "For everyone that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a babe." ( Hebrews 5:13). We become mature Christians by exercising our spiritual awareness of good and evil.
Those Hebrew Christians had not prepared themselves to transmit the message of God. They were inexperienced and ignorant, not because there were no opportunities to grow spiritually, but because of neglect. Today, talented Christian people use their abilities to make things happen at work, in the community, at school, but often fail to prepare for service in the Lord's work. Let's grow spiritually in 1989.