I have described how Jesus began to change my life when I started as a student at Homerton College Cambridge in 1980. Responding to Jesus’s invitation to become a child of God has influenced every response that I have made since then. However, when I first became a Christian I was like a very small infant and the nourishment that I was receiving from the Bible was at first like milk. I needed it to survive but like a baby I could not do much more than receive and drink and even my vision was limited.

A newborn baby can focus on his mother’s face, but at first he is not able to see further afield.

Cute but vulnerable

My attention was now on Jesus and, in a spiritual sense, I had started over and my life was new. Now I had the living Spirit of Jesus in me, the Holy Spirit. I had the potential to change the world but I had to grow up. My life was full of hope. God himself was with me but like a child I had much to learn and I would make mistakes.

As a parent it is tempting to wish that our children would remain infants. For a mother, that sensation of being needed and appreciated is usually more exciting than the teenage response from our older kids: a loud opinion. It seems that sometimes the church is also tempted to hold on to a vast collection of babies. If we are loved and encouraged and fed enough to get by then surely we will coo like contented babes and cause little trouble. However, God’s word, the Bible, warns us that this is not his plan.

In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews chapter 5 verses 13 and 14, he writes, “For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and does not know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.” Paul was complaining about people who had been Christians for a while. They had not grown up, they had not received sufficient training to make godly responses and their understanding of the Bible was minimal.

My desire is that you would not remain a spiritual infant. Study the Bible, listen to Christian talks that will challenge you to repent and change. I find Alastair Begg’s talks on www.TruthForLife.org helpful. Growing up is painful but it leads to spiritual maturity. A mature animal is less likely to be food for the local lion. Similarly, when we are mature we have the skill to “recognize the difference between right and wrong”, we can more successfully avoid our enemy the devil who “prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Peter exhorts us, in verse 9 “to stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith”.

Receive training from the word of God and don’t be naive like an infant. God can overpower our lion like enemy but if we remain immature we will be devoured.

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