Meat and Potatoes

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, 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 5:11-14

I have lots of favorite meals. Pizza for instance is always good. One I really like is lamb and herb roasted potatoes. Whether its pizza or meat and potatoes or even a good stew on a cold night it is always good to have a meal of solid food. I don’t know too many adults who would say they just love being on a liquid diet, we all desire to enjoy a meal that we can savor and that satisfies our hunger and gives is the fuel we need to do the things we love. What about our spiritual lives though, what do we feed them?

I don’t want to offend anyone but as we near Palm Sunday and then the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection I’ve been thinking about how sometimes we, myself included, are content to just let someone else feed our spiritual lives. The thing is, we are not babies or small children, we are supposed to be mature human beings and mature humans don’t usually want to be fed by someone, we like to feed ourselves – so why are we content often times to let someone else feed us spiritual food?

Don’t misunderstand me, listening to great teaching on a Sunday morning is a good thing, as long as it is not the only thing you are doing to nourish your soul, to take care of that new heart you got when you decided to follow Jesus. Maybe it would be helpful to think of your Sunday morning experience as having a great meal in a nice restaurant and that the rest of the week you are responsible for getting your own meals ready.

The writer of Hebrews is concerned for the people he is writing for, he is concerned they might fall away because they have gotten into the habit of letting someone else feed them, but they aren’t really getting what they need from that spiritual food because they aren’t living it out in their lives.

I want to challenge you this week as we draw nearer and near to the Good Friday cross to prepare yourself some good solid spiritual food. Go to church of course, but during the week be part of a small group Bible study, have a quiet devotional time, spend time in God’s Word, volunteer somewhere, pray a lot, listen to Christian music on the radio or your mobile device, practice random acts of kindness, you get the idea.

We are too old for a spiritual bottle, so let’s have a meat and potatoes kind of Christian lifestyle.

A Prayer
Father – We all need to be reminded, once in a while that we need more than spiritual milk to become mature followers of Christ. Show us each day how to have spiritual meat and potatoes, so that we can become who you are making us to be, so we can do all that you want us to do, so our hearts are healthy and full to overflowing with your love. Thank you for all the work you are doing in our lives – in the name of Jesus, Amen.