Childlike faith and Childish Faith, there is a difference
Like every Church, Boundless Grace has an age limit for children who can be placed in our nursery. I think it’s around two or three years old. Of course, the reason for the age limit is that infants demand lots of attention which requires more personal care and staffing than other ministries. These little ones are still crawling, crying, and wanting to be coddled. The fact is, infants have one thing in common “need.” In keeping with the vernacular of our day, it’s all about them!
Well, recently while driving down the highway a humorous thought came to mind. What if Churches lifted the age limit, spiritually speaking for attendance into our nurseries? The result I fear would be overcrowded nursery rooms with people in their twenties, thirties, forties, and even fifties, all needing to be checked in.
All right, I must confess, I have become a little jaded over my twenty plus years in vocational ministry as a pastor but I have observed many believers who are old in their confession of the faith by mere infants in their walk of faith. As I used to hear from a pastor in my former Church, some men are so old in God that you must part their beard to give them a bottle. Ouch!!!!!
The Crawling Believer
When a baby starts crawling a parent gets excited, but if the child is still crawling at the age three there is reason for concern. Well, my blogger friends, I think that our churches are filled with crawling believers; crawling in their knowledge of the word of God, crawling in their ability to serve faithfully without complaint, crawling in their ability to trust God under trial, crawling in their ability to love people unlike themselves, crawling in their willingness to forgive and forget. They are just crawling! There is reason for concern. After all, God gets glory from our walk, not our crawl.
The Crying Believer
Of course, a baby cries because it has only one way to express his need! But at age forty we would hope a person would be able to communicate need without whining. I’m afraid some believers are better known for their whine than their worship. They whine because the pastor didn’t acknowledge their need or ideas, they whine when they are overlooked for a leadership position, they even whine if the coffee is not hot enough or the doughnuts don’t have sprinkles on them! All right, maybe it’s not all this bad, but deprive some believers of what they feel they deserve and be ready to plug your ears!
Perhaps we have forgotten that just being in God’s family is a blessing.
I’m reminded of the story of the prodigal son in keeping with this point.
You know the story! The son goes out and sows his wild oats and screws up his life only to return home in repentance. The words uttered by the boy upon his return home to his gracious father are worth reflection here.
I am not worthy to be called a son, just let me live as one of your servants!
Dear Believer, do you remember how blessed you felt to know that the Father had forgiven you of your sins and rebellion? Do you remember the sense of privilege of just being welcomed into the family of believers? I’m afraid that sometimes we can lose sight of our blessings and be self deceived into thinking that we are somehow being neglected by the Father or his people.
The Coddled Believer
Have you ever been around someone in Church that made you feel that you must walk on egg shells around them? You know the type, people who seem to say non-verbally, it’s my way or the highway. My friends, the Church isn’t Burger King’s where you can have it your way! We are called to consider others more important than ourselves (Philippians 2). It’s not about us is it?
Growing up in our Faith
All right, what might you ask is the solution to growing out of the spiritual nursery? I think the Apostle Peter with great precision and concision has the answer: a statement, a scripture printed on our giveaway coffee mugs at Boundless Grace:
Grace and Peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. 2Peter1:2
Mature believers are people who are so attracted to God that they not only want to know him better but that they want to become like him as well. Not just enjoying His grace and peace as a gift for themselves but gifts to be poured out on those with whom they worship next to in the pew. Or as the Apostle Paul exhorted the Church at Ephesus,
Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Eph.5:1-2
Symptoms of Maturity in the Making
As a father of three, I can still remember using the door jam in my daughter’s bedroom as a benchmark for their growth spurts. Every few months one of my girls would want to stand up against the door jam to be measured. If the pencil mark was even a ¼ inch above the last line there was reason to celebrate, after all, growth had taken place. This exercise was always fun for both me and my daughters. Perhaps we would do ourselves well to standup in the doorway of our own spiritual bedroom and measure ourselves in the following areas to see if we have grown over the past few years:
1. Gentleness towards others:
Mature people are gentle spirited which is seen in a willingness to yield rather than be pushy and controlling. Phil.4:5
2. Able to overlook offenses: Mature believers are not easily offended and will work hard at overlooking faults. After all, love covers over a multitude of sins. 1Peter4:8
3. Hard to tick off: The Bible says that we are not to be easily angered!
4. Content to serve others rather than being served or seen!
The greatest in the kingdom according to Jesus are the servants of all! Matt.20:26
5. Refuse to whine!
Do all things without grumbling or disputing: so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom we appear as lights in the world holding fast the word of life. Phil.2:14-16a
6. Follow your leaders rather than fight with them.
A clear symptom of immaturity is an unwillingness to submit to leadership, i.e. authority figures in the church. Heb.13:17
7. Growing in your knowledge of God: Growing believers are growing in their knowledge of God by means of Bible study.
Well, in wrapping this blog up, can I ask you a question or two? Have you grown in the past year? Do you have reason to celebrate, or are you still crawling, crying, and needed to be coddled? If you are growing go out today and celebrate your growth in Christ! If not, get off the carpet at once and make up your mind to start walking after Christ. After all, the carpet will give you rug burns!!!!
