Someone has sagely observed that about the time you start getting your head together your body starts to fall apart. My hair is turning greyer, my eyesight is fading and all but gone, I cannot hear very well, and my body has begun its downhill descent, yet wisdom has slowly begun to replace my foolish impulsiveness. I cannot remember how many times I have wistfully stated that I wish I had it all to do over again knowing what I know now. Unfortunately, this is no dress rehearsal, and it is all we will ever get on this earth.
Thinking about this subject made me wonder if one of God’s reasons for coming up with the term “born again” was to make it analogous to our spiritual and our physical lives. We are first born a baby, then a small child, a tween, teen, young adult, adult, mature adult, and then over the hill and ready to enter toe-up’ into the bone yard’. When we accept Christ despite our physical age we are yet babies. Babies need milk. The Bible states that hearing the word of God is analogous to providing milk for a baby. Think about what babies need when first born; aside from milk babies need plenty of loving care that is for sure. They need guidance throughout childhood to excel when they grow older Take it through every level. Just hearing the word and becoming a Christian does not mean that we are where we need to be at that moment in time as we are merely babies. There is a maturing process and success is not guaranteed.
Jesus told a parable about this. He likened hearing the word of God to a farmer sowing seeds on various types of ground. Some of the sown seed landed by the wayside; Jesus likened this to hearing the word and not understanding it and then the wicked one comes and snatches it away. Another was sown on stony ground. Jesus likened this to someone who initially receives it with joy, but since they have no depth, at the first sign of tribulation or persecution they stumble. Another example was seed sown among the thorns. This type said Jesus was similar to someone who hears the word, but the cares of this world and riches choke the word out of that person’s heart and that person becomes unfruitful. The last example was likened to seed sown on fertile soil as someone who hears the word, understands it, and then who bears fruit and produces.
When I became a Christian one might not have known it from observing my behavior. Prior to that occurrence I had lived 24 years of evil and as a result I had many bad habits to overcome. It took a long time to form those evil habits, and it is taking a long time to change them; it has not been an overnight process. It was a spiritual maturing process and still is! Sometimes people expect too much from people who have accepted Christ. Cut them some slack next time because for all you know they might still be a baby Christian or perhaps in their troubling teens. Anyone who has ever studied Proverbs understands that youngsters need guidance, and this applies to young Christians as well. Being stuck by the thunderbolt’ of knowing Jesus does not give someone instant’ spiritual maturity like drinking an elixir.
I thought it interesting when studying this parable that much of the dialogue of Jesus was concerned with hearing the word and understanding it. He spelled it out plainly for us in that we need to stay in the word. Children go to school and study and we are God’s children. As God’s children we should be studying the word and once we have matured be sharing it with others. If you will notice this parable is not about us. It is about hearing the word, understanding it, and then PRODUCING 30, 60, or a hundredfold. Are you a mature Christian? Look at your production record and it will tell you.
Matt. 13:23
But he who received seed on the
good ground is he who hears the
word and understands it, who indeed
bears fruit and produces
some a hundredfold, some sixty,
some thirty.