Wow. This message really spoke to me today, for I had heard this word today in church about babes and maturity. And this today is a confirmation to me.
Here's some things that I learned:
putting on an adult's clothes does not make you an adult. For ex. a little girl who dresses up like her mother, and acts like her and talks like her. All she is doing is "role playing". She does not know or understand the full meaning of being an adult (and all that it costs).
babies want things sugar-coated. For ex. they take their medicine with flavor coatings, like grape or cherry. It's because they don't want the full taste [flavor] of that which is good for them.
babies [or immature ones] get angry and throw a fit or sulk [showing that they are mad]. They refuse to be taught [instruction] because they think they know it all. And they talk about the ones who corrected them (but they do not use that word corrected) because they see it as injury to them selves. {it's the self that is aware and sees it as an attack, and wants to defend it-self by talking about the other person.)
babies have limited understanding. For ex. a child will run out into the street without looking when chasing after a ball that has gone out into the street. A mature person will look both ways before going after the ball in the street.
and being forced out into something doesn't make you ready. For ex. an 18 yr. old who is forced out of his parents home.
Yet, we see that Adam had no experience at all as a child; he was made full grown in natural terms (and so was Eve). He had to fully know God. This Adam was called the first Adam, and Jesus was called the second Adam.
Jesus experienced a mother and father, a childhood, and siblings.
I wondered why about the first Adam? Perhaps it is because maturity is very important to God, and we are to look to Him as Father at all times.
Jesus went through a process - a process of time before He entered into ministry [God's destiny].
Heb. 5:8-10 "though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as High Priest."
Through suffering we learn obedience if we are willing to receive from His Word and to use it during those times.
Yes, we can lament, which I have been learning, for it is a time of worship just as Job did. We must bring all unto God.
These tests/trials are to stretch us [to enlarge us] in the arena of faith. It is putting the Word to use. It is the causing of our faith to grow; it is for our maturing in the Word of God (if we will allow it). We can't be reckless, nor can we be immature any longer, but growing up to full stature and becoming strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, so that the grace of God is upon us. {Luke 2:40.)
We need the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to reach their destiny and fulfill it within the church so that the saints are equipped ........ and no longer being children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine; that we come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of Son of God ........ to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And speaking the truth in love.
The Holy Spirit has been sent to fill us. Won't we receive of Him today?
The Holy Spirit comes to brood over the darkness and the void in our lives even as earthen vessels, and it is He who shall fill, but, we must be made into the image of God's Son, and that comes from confrontations [offense]. It is these confrontations which shall cause us to be conformed into the image of God's Son when we use the Word! We must choose not to be offended because of correction, but to receive correction and be changed! And the Holy Spirit will do His work within us changing us and healing us and making us whole and new in Christ's image.
I know that I have spoken a lot here, but, I hope that is wasn't so broken up as I had wrote. I just wanted to speak up at this time of how God works in us and will work through us.
God bless.
Ilene