HEBREWS 5:12-14

 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.

TO PONDER

Anyone who has met me will probably be able to tell you that I enjoy my food. Now that I am in my 40's it tends to show around my belly a bit more than it used to and it's a bit more difficult to hide the fact that I have probably over indulged in the art of barbecue a little too often. But whether it's a perfectly grilled bbq steak, a tiny meal on a giant plate at a fancy restaurant, or even just one of your home-cooked favourites, there is something about a good plate of food.

I remember a scene from the movie, The Matrix. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it's a movie set in a dystopian future where robots have taken over the Earth and a small human resistance lives deep beneath the surface of the earth. These human resistance fighters mostly survive on a synthetic porridge, which contains a mix of all the vitamins minerals, energy and protein a human needs to survive. However, one of the characters is enticed to work with the robots simply by the promise of being granted the sensation of eating a juicy medium rare porterhouse steak. The vitamin slurry provided what was needed for life but the desire for 'real' food was ultimately this character's undoing. (those who have seen the movie will understand the air quotes on the word real).

Faith in Jesus is like baby formula, milk, or vitamin porridge. It give us exactly what we need for eternal life. We can not get it for ourselves, it has to be provided for us and it meets out immediate need of acceptance and forgiveness. Yet real life is what happens when we really sink our teeth into God's word. When we not only talk about it and try to understand it, but also put it to the test by trying to do it. As we constantly use and live the new life we have in Christ, the more we find ourselves hungering for it and like Charle's Dickens', Oliver Twist, we keep going back to the source and asking for more.

The good news is, when it comes to life in Christ, there's always more.

PRAYER: Jesus, Help me not to settle for the comfort of where I am in my spiritual maturity right now. Please help me to grow a hunger for more of your word and more of your life so that I might be filled and others might see you more clearly in me. Amen

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Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle