Growing in Christ involves far more than just attending church, tithing, and listening to a sermon. In fact, many believers do these yet remain stagnant in their walk. There are two elements necessary for us to become more like Jesus: instruction and involvement.

The first of these, learning truth, is vital to a healthy walk with God. Our Savior proved the importance of instruction by devoting much of His time on earth to it. The apostle Paul is another example, as he wrote letters to educate Christians about godliness.

So how can we gain knowledge and understanding? One of the most important and effective ways is to read the Word of God. Scripture instructs us that just as newborns crave milk, we are to desire His Word so that we might grow. I pray your spiritual thirst will become insatiable.

Yet simply listening to the truth does not mean that we’ve acquired it. I know many people who love attending Bible studies and expanding their knowledge base, but their lives remain unchanged. Just as today’s passage teaches, we have to apply the Word to our lives. Even so, actual growth requires more than merely inputting information. It requires action. James 2:26 states, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”

Are we careless hearers, deceived into thinking that we’re growing? Or are we listening intently and abiding in the truth? If we’re truly maturing, our lives will be increasingly Christlike, and our desires will align more closely with God’s heart. Make sure that you are listening and responding to His truth.

 The concept of “shelf life” has always intrigued me. It is an expression that describes exactly what it attempts to define. For instance, Twinkies have a shelf life of twenty-five days, after which, their existence on the shelf as something edible expires. But shelf life is also an expression that is metaphorically full. One might say of “Cabbage Patch Kids” that they were once a quite a phenomenon; shoppers were injured as the dolls were pulled off the shelves and seized by anxious crowds. But the craze was relatively short-lived; as far as fads go, the shelf life was fairly brief.  

 In high school chemistry we took in the ponderous thought that everything has a shelf life. In fact, in many substances this is an incredibly important number to watch. A variety of compounds, particularly those containing certain unstable elements, become more unstable as they approach their shelf life. Chemical explosives grow increasingly dangerous over time and with exposure to certain factors in the environment becoming liable to explode without warning.

 There is a tendency to view ideas and thoughts as having a similar aging process. When something is deemed ancient or even slightly “behind the times” it is often accordingly considered obsolete. As if it has become out-dated like a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk, the aging thought or idea, in many minds, grows more unusable with time. And in many cases, history has shown this to be an accurate picture. Certain philosophies might come to mind as movements that rendered themselves useless over time and exposure to the world. Like compounds approaching their shelf life, their collapse was inevitable and they eventually imploded without warning.

 Ideas undeniably have consequences and some approach their shelf lives more dangerously than others. While some have not fully burst at the seams, signs of instability appear. Grumbles of discontent from within their own ideological camps may hint at incoherence. Even so, the noticeable shelf life of specific ideas should cause us to question the cause of their expiration, rather than assume it is time alone that moves an idea to expire. 

 This is no doubt well-studied in science. Factors that increase and decrease the shelf life of a product move well beyond time itself. When certain compounds are stored at decreased temperatures, their shelf life is increased significantly. Likewise, the development of preservatives dramatically set back the expiration dates on food in our pantries. Like compounds and breakfast items, all ideas do not expire equally. We are thus badly mistaken to dismiss a thought solely because it is old.

 The ancient psalmist speaks of God’s hope as something that does not expire. “Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them” (119:140). Extending through generation after generation, the promises of God stand untouched and unphased by a changing environment. Personally I know how often I have learned the hard way, thinking that surely modern thought has improved the idea, only to find myself returning to words commanded generations ago. Again and again God’s own discover a reason to love the promising hope of Father, Son, and Spirit: “I have learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever.”

 Perhaps God’s Spirit is the ultimate preservative. God’s love is not offered without depth; God’s promises are filled with the intention of life. They have been thoroughly tested and have yet to expire. 

 Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Morning    “The ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven wellfavoured and fat

kine.”     Genesis 41:4

 Pharaoh’s dream has too often been my waking experience. My days of sloth have

ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous industry; my

seasons of coldness have frozen all the genial glow of my periods of fervency

and enthusiasm; and my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances

in the divine life. I had need to beware of lean prayers, lean praises, lean

duties, and lean experiences, for these will eat up the fat of my comfort and

peace. If I neglect prayer for never so short a time, I lose all the

spirituality to which I had attained; if I draw no fresh supplies from heaven,

the old corn in my granary is soon consumed by the famine which rages in my

soul.

 When the caterpillars of indifference, the cankerworms of worldliness, and the

palmerworms of self-indulgence, lay my heart completely desolate, and make my

soul to languish, all my former fruitfulness and growth in grace avails me

nothing whatever. How anxious should I be to have no lean-fleshed days, no

ill-favoured hours! If every day I journeyed towards the goal of my desires I

should soon reach it, but backsliding leaves me still far off from the prize of

my high calling, and robs me of the advances which I had so laboriously made.

The only way in which all my days can be as the “fat kine,” is to feed them in

the right meadow, to spend them with the Lord, in His service, in His

 company, in His fear, and in His way. Why should not every year be richer than

the past, in love, and usefulness, and joy?–I am nearer the celestial hills, I

have had more experience of my Lord, and should be more like Him. O Lord, keep

far from me the curse of leanness of soul; let me not have to cry, “My leanness,

my leanness, woe unto me!” but may I be well-fed and nourished in thy house,

that I may praise thy name.

 

Evening    “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.”    2 Timothy 2:12

 We must not imagine that we are suffering for Christ, and with Christ, if we are

not in Christ. Beloved friend, are you trusting to Jesus only? If not, whatever

you may have to mourn over on earth, you are not “suffering with Christ,” and

have no hope of reigning with him in heaven. Neither are we to conclude that all

a Christian’s sufferings are sufferings with Christ, for it is essential that he

be called by God to suffer. If we are rash and imprudent, and run into positions

for which neither providence nor grace has fitted us, we ought to question

whether we are not rather sinning than communing with Jesus. If we let passion

take the place of judgment, and self-will reign instead of

 Scriptural authority, we shall fight the Lord’s battles with the devil’s

weapons, and if we cut our own fingers we must not be surprised. Again, in

troubles which come upon us as the result of sin, we must not dream that we are

suffering with Christ. When Miriam spoke evil of Moses, and the leprosy polluted

her, she was not suffering for God. Moreover, suffering which God accepts must

have God’s glory as its end. If I suffer that I may earn a name, or win

applause, I shall get no other reward than that of the Pharisee. It is requisite

also that love to Jesus, and love to his elect, be ever the mainspring of all

our patience. We must manifest the Spirit of Christ in meekness, gentleness,

 and forgiveness. Let us search and see if we truly suffer with Jesus. And if we

do thus suffer, what is our “light affliction” compared with reigning with him?

Oh it is so blessed to be in the furnace with Christ, and such an honour to

stand in the pillory with him, that if there were no future reward, we might

count ourselves happy in present honour; but when the recompense is so eternal,

so infinitely more than we had any right to expect, shall we not take up the

cross with alacrity, and go on our way rejoicing?

 

To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.   Psalm 28:1 

A cry is the natural expression of sorrow, and a suitable utterance when all other modes of appeal fail us; but the cry must be alone directed to the Lord, for to cry to man is to waste our entreaties upon the air. When we consider the readiness of the Lord to hear and His ability to aid, we shall see good reason for directing all our appeals at once to the God of our salvation. It will be in vain to call to the rocks in the day of judgment, but our Rock attends to our cries.

“Be not deaf to me.” Mere formalists may be content without answers to their prayers, but genuine suppliants cannot; they are not satisfied with the results of prayer itself in calming the mind and subduing the will—they must go further and obtain actual replies from heaven or they cannot rest; and those replies they long to receive at once—they dread even a little of God’s silence.

God’s voice is often so terrible that it shakes the wilderness; but His silence is equally full of awe to an eager suppliant. When God seems to close His ear, we must not therefore close our mouths but rather cry with more earnestness; for when our note grows shrill with eagerness and grief, He will not long deny us a hearing. What a dreadful case we would be in if the Lord should become forever deaf to our prayers. “Lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.” Deprived of the God who answers prayer, we would be in a more pitiable plight than the dead in the grave and would soon sink to the same level as the lost in hell. We must have answers to prayer: Ours is an urgent case of dire necessity; surely the Lord will speak peace to our agitated minds, for He never can find it in His heart to permit His own elect to perish.

Family Reading Plan   Isaiah 64    Matthew 12