1Peter2:2(Amp) says, "Like newborn babies you should crave (thirst for, earnestly desire), the pure unadulterated Spiritual milk (the milk of God's Word), that by it you may be nurtured and grow up unto completed salvation." God's Word is the means by which we grow. This is an individual thing and is the responsibility of every believer. Our pastor's job is to feed us, but after awhile, we must learn to feed ourselves, along with hearing the Word from our pastor on Sunday. We wouldn't feed our natural man/woman only on Sundays and expect him/her to grow, so why would we only feed our new creation man/woman only once a week? Our newborn spirit requires food, in order to grow and mature.
We develop faith and trust in God's Word, as we study it and that leads to maturing unto completed salvation. In Heb.8:12(Amp), for example, says that, "Your sins and iniquities I remember no more." We try believing this, but our natural man/woman tries to put us under condemnation over who we used to be. The more we read and feed our new creation person, the more we begin overcoming the condemnation and walking in the Liberty of God's Truth. Many Christians today, still walk under the guilt and condemnation of who they once were and don't enjoy their life of Liberty in Christ Jesus.
When I was first saved, I bought the entire Bible on cassette tapes and listened to them while I slept and as much as possible when I was awake. It became a habit and I found it difficult to sleep without hearing the Word played. As a result of feeding my spirit on God's Word this much, I began trusting God in areas that I never could have before, because my spirit was growing stronger on a daily basis. I didn't even realize that it was happening. Today, I still spend as much time in God's Word as possible, to keep my spirit strong in the Lord and the Power of His Might.
Some view this as being "over the top," but it depends on how we want to walk with Him. Do you want to see the Power and Presence of the Super-natural Force of God in your life? Or, do you just want to be a quiet Christian? God loves us all the same and He will never reject those who come to Him, but He wants us all to become mature Christians, so He can accomplish what He's planned for us.
The Apostle Paul could have stopped preaching and growing the early Church, so that he wouldn't endure persecution. Paul would have still been saved, but his walk with the Lord was strengthened by his maturity of Revelation and he was willing to die and be pleasing to God, rather than quitting. We would never heard the Revelation Jesus gave to Paul, if he had quit and we would not have much of The New Testament. Paul preached the Gospel to people, who never heard that they could be "righteous in God's sight." This caused him to undergo great persecution, but Paul never stopped.
Many considered it blasphemous, for Paul to preach that the Gentiles could come into covenant with the Jews, but Paul continued with what he had learned in his spirit, through faith in God's Word and God's Word and Spirit sustained him through it all. If what God calls us to do could be done on our own, then we wouldn't need the Super-natural intervention of the Holy Spirit or the Word, to do it. God's Word is a "Lamp onto our path," and we can't stay on the course He's called us to, without it. How would we differ from all the religions that exist in the world, if we don't have the Super-natural in our Christian lives?
Jesus didn't come to start another religion, but He came to bring us relationship with God. We're not to be servants or subjects of God, but we're sons and daughters in His family. In order to realize the Truth of what Jesus has done, we must truly believe what His Word says about the removal of sin, the redemption from the Curse and the reconciliation back to the Father, as His Own family. The personal relationship we have with the Father, grows by spending time with Him and trusting in what He's done for us, through Jesus.
Rom.10:17(KJV) says, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Jesus says much about what we hear and the results of our hearing, in "The Parable of the Sower," in Mark4:4,8-9(Amp). Jesus likened the Word as a Seed and the heart or spirit of a person, as being soil in which the Seed is grown. The same Seed (Word) that was eaten by the birds in Verse 4, is the same Word (Seed) that brought forth a hundred times, in Verse 8. The difference wasn't that the Seed (Word) doesn't work for everyone, but that not everyone puts the same importance on what they hear. Jesus said in Verse 9, "He who has ears to hear, let him be hearing and let him consider and comprehend."
The emphasis isn't on the Seed (Word), but on the hearer. The depth of the soil (heart) and the care of the Seed (Word), depends on those who will hear and believe in the Seed (Word). The cares of the world, even thought they might not be evil or sinful, can choke out the harvest and the Seed. The cares of raising a family, going to work paying our bills, shopping for groceries and the daily things of life, can take up all of our time, leaving no time for us to spend in God's Word and choking out our fellowship with the Lord.
In Mark4:14(Amp), Jesus tells us that, "The Seed, is the Word of God." 1Peter1:23(Amp) tells us that, "This Seed (Word) is Immortal, by the Ever Living and Lasting Word of God." In the natural world, anyone who plants a kernel of corn, will reap a harvest, if it's planted in good soil. It will work for a sinner, as well as a Christian, because the seed was created to produce. We must give care, thought and study to what we hear, because that is what we will reap.
We've been told, "It doesn't work for everyone," but Jesus says it does, but only for those who will care for and watch over it, like they should. God's Word is the incorruptible Seed and will always work in the heart of whosoever will take it in, care for and nourish it. There's no person who can call upon Jesus in faith for salvation, who won't be saved. It just depends on those who call and those who believe.
As we go on in Christ Jesus, we'll discover that God's Word hasn't only produced new creation people. If we continue in the Seed of God's Word, it'll produce all God has Promised by the Seed, in the lives of the new creation believers. Some are content to be cleansed from sin, while others wish to go into a greater harvest by the Word, here in this life. This depends on the soil of the hearer's heart. We must stay with the Word (Seed) and it will by it's Own Power, produce what it says. The Seed already has whatever it needs to produce, it just needs good soil.
It's obvious that not everyone in the Body of Christ, are understanding God's Word, in the same state of maturity. A baby isn't rejected as not being "intelligent," just because he/she can't read. The baby just needs to mature and will learn to read. Many times we view others who don't know certain things, as being "less" than others. We sometimes see those who've learned and grown up in the Lord, as being "know it all's." Remember, we are all one in Him and are to grow unto the stature of the fullness of Christ, according to Eph.4:13(Amp) which says, "That it might develop until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the full and accurate knowledge of the Son of God; that we might arrive at really mature manhood, the completeness of personality, which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ's Own perfection, the measure of stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him."
This is the growing age in the Church, from the day in the Upper Room to the Revelation given to the Apostle Paul, to the time in which we are now living, to the coming of the Lord Jesus. Don't quit, but keep learning, growing, believing and identifying with the One in which we're to grow up in.
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