Hebrews 5 - Solid Food - A Call to Spiritual Growth

Let’s be honest for a minute.  Stop the spin.  We are an ignorant and wayward people - in many ways like Moab (Jeremiah 48).  We can clean up well on Sundays, but often only for half a day.  The other half is for worldly pursuits.

        Shopping, restaurants, and doctoral degrees in professional football.  Oh yes, we complain about the lack of biblical literacy in America.  But just ask us.  We know everything about the fullback, safety, and tight end  - where they went to high school how fast they are, etc.  We know the offensive strategy of each team in the league and don’t even get us started on the salary cap issues.

        But sadly in the things of God, we are clueless.  I was told recently that the modern church's level of biblical literacy is lower than non-church people just fifty years ago.  I suspect that is true.  We are uninterested.  Thank God Jesus can deal with ignorant and wayward people (5:2).

        We’ve become a nation of zombies - mesmerized by Doritos commercials and Instagram reels.  Dear Lord Jesus, please help us.  Please wake us up from this trance.  Yes, we are ignorant and wayward - but we know the Rescuer, Jesus Christ, and that He is more than able to revive His church.  We know His church is forcefully advancing.  Jesus prays for us and pleads for us with loud cries and tears.  Jesus knows the stakes.  He knows the struggle.  And He knows how weak we are.

        The level of pride and arrogance in the modern church would be comical if it wasn’t so shameful.  Jesus calls us to grow up.  To man up.  To woman up.  Once all of us were babies - living on nothing but milk.  And still, spiritually speaking, many of us are stuck in that first six months of spiritual life, never growing, never maturing - never tasting solid food of spiritual growth.

        “Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong” (5:14).  The evolutionist will tell you that we are devolved from primordial slime and that we need to intentionally override our evolutionary impulses.  They are dead wrong in that.  We are created in the image of God.  But the truth is we do need to train for Godliness.  We do need to grow.  And every person born of a woman can grow and as we hear in chapter five we must grow.

        So, let us train.  May we train as though our lives depend on it.  May we become experts in the things of God our Saviour - with deep reverence for Almighty God.  Know more about your flock and those you are responsible to disciple than you ever do about Roll Tide.

        Lord Jesus, we repent of our sins and we stand before you today admitting ignorance and waywardness - some of us are so far off the path the GPS can’t find us.

        Bring us back.  All of us.  Help no man or woman to be left behind.  Today.  Now.  Please, as we know life is short.  Help us to escape from this trance of ridiculous pursuits and false aims.

        We need to start again in basic training.  We know we need to repent and end our cycles of sin and justifications for worldliness.  We desperately want to grow and mature into godly wisdom.  Please help us today to labor for You, Lord Jesus.  Please give your people, true humility, gentleness, increased understanding, and endurance for the fight.  Amen.

Our grandsons' soccer.