1Peter 2:2(Amp) says, "Like newborn babies you should crave (thirst for, earnestly desire), the pure unadulterated Spiritual milk of the Word, that by it you may be nurtured and grow into completed salvation."
Newborn babies must have milk and nourishment in order to grow in the natural and this is true for the new babes in Christ, in the Spirit realm. Milk is essential for the newborn babies and it's essential that newborn babies in Christ receive the unadulterated Spiritual milk of God's Word. If we don't read, hear or feed God's Word into our newborn spirit, then we can't mature or grow in the Spirit realm.
We might be saved and will go to be with the Lord when leaving this earth, but we can do no more than a baby in this realm and must be cared for by others. We must feed on and learn God's Word, in order to mature in Christ and do what God intended the Church to do. Paul writes in Heb.5:13-14 (Amp), "For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness, of the conformity to the Divine will in purpose, thought and action, for he is a mere infant not able to talk yet. But solid food is for full grown men, for those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to Divine or human law."
Many believers have centered mostly on being saved and going to Heaven, while others have learned that through Jesus Christ, we've become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. This doesn't mean that baby Christians aren't joint heirs, but that babies have no idea what this truly means in their lives. We've been born into God's family, made in His Image and Likeness in our spirit, and we are now what the Word calls us and not who we once were.
You're no longer a sinner, in your newborn identity in Christ Jesus, but you've been made to be righteous, justified and one spirit with Him. As babies, we still see ourselves in the failures of the flesh, but we see who we really are by the Sacrifice and ransom note Jesus paid for by His Blood. We must take God's Word and discover who He has made us to be in Him. The flesh will come into subjection of the spirit man/woman, if we'll strengthen the spirit and grow up in Christ.
The pull of the world, along with distractions of the flesh, will have to bow to the Lordship of Christ, if we will strengthen it by the "meat" of God's Word. James tells us that God's Word is a "mirror," in James 1:23-25 (Amp), saying, "If anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his own reflection and natural face in a mirror. For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like." We see our new creation reflection, in the mirror of God's Word, but then we forget what we saw and return to what we were in the flesh. Verse 25 continues, "But he who looks carefully into the faultless Law (the Law of Liberty) and is faithful to it and perseveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgets but an active doer who obeys, he shall be Blessed in his doing, his life of obedience."
Many see who we've been made to be in God's Word, then forget what we looked like in the faultless Law of Liberty (the mirror of God's Word) and fall back into the mere men and women we were before being born-again. Paul said that, "Solid food is for full grown men, not babies any longer," in Heb.5:14. Those who continue looking into the faultless Law of Liberty and are conforming to that image, instead of what the world says they are, are no longer babes in Christ.
God's Word is likened to a mirror and reflects who we are now, not who we once were, in 2Cor.3:17-18 (Amp), which says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom)." James tells us that God's Word is the perfect Law of Liberty. Verse 18 goes on, "And all of us, as with unveiled face, because we continue to behold in the Word of God as in a mirror the Glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His Very Own Image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord Who is the Spirit."
God's Word is a mirror that reveals the true image of we are in Christ and the glory of the Lord is transfiguring us into that same Image, by the Word and by the Holy Spirit. Jesus prayed in John17:22 (Amp), "I have given to them the glory and honor which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are One." We've been seeing ourselves as less than what Jesus has made us to be, because we believe "it's prideful" to see ourselves that way. The awful truth is that only pride could say in the face of what Jesus has done, "This isn't true." Only pride could stand against the Truth of God's Word and say "it isn't so."
We are what He created us to be and only carnal pride or religion can cause us to stand in the face of God's Truth and declare we're somehow inferior and still in our sins. Rom.8:7(Amp) says, "The carnal mind is hostile to God and does not submit itself to God's Law, indeed it cannot."
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