Mere Milk

“You have come to need milk and not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Hebrews 5:12b-14.

When an infant is born the necessity for development is milk. There is no question that milk is essential in the health and growth of all babies. But what if milk was the only source of food given to a child as they approached toddler’s age or even young children? The child would be unhealthy and stunted in growth – sickly if you will – and would not develop in the healthy manner required for maturation.

The same is with our spiritual growth. When we begin our pursuit of knowing God we nurse on simple truths until truths of that season are learned. We then move on to deeper truths in our spiritual walk nourishing us with more knowledge of Christ. ‘Professing believers who stay on a milk diet are unskilled in the word of righteousness. They are hearers of the word, but not doers. They lose what they do not use, and remain in a state of perpetual infancy.’ Believer’s Bible Commentary, p. 2172.

As in the case of Helen Keller, due of her inability to see and hear, she worked hard developing her sense of taste, smell and touch. She exercised her remaining senses to help her distinguish between important things she needed to recognize in order to be successful. Just as her challenges heightened her remaining senses, adversity sharpens our spiritual senses allowing us to determine right from wrong. Through the exercising and practicing of our faith, we will learn to hear and recognize God’s truths to bring us into a mature and seasoned faith.

The temptation is to forget what we have learned and not put in action the truths of the solid food for which we have been fed by God. By returning to mere milk, we will not grow into the beautiful spiritual adults for which we were created.