Big Ol' Baby

Children, if all is well, will grow up.
If in kindergarten they need diapers, there’s a problem. If they take a pacifier to prom, there’s a problem. If they need a bib at their wedding, there’s a problem.
Sometimes the children of God have a problem and they don’t realize it. They won’t grow up.
Unlike physical growth, spiritual growth is optional. There’s no seniority plan in salvation. However, there is such a thing as not being as grown up as we should be.
I know Christians (term used loosely) late into their retirement years who are petty, selfish and ignorant of the Word of God. Babies with gray hair.
I know teenagers who lay all their agendas and plans at the feet of Jesus every day and lift their lives and their hands unashamedly to Him. They are the matriarchs and patriarchs of faith.
God will only do the things we let him do in our lives and he won’t take away the things we hang on to. Growing up in Jesus is a choice.
Sometimes we think that just claiming the name of Christianity and acknowledging “one nation under God” is sufficient. We might even have made the decision to accept the sacrifice of the cross and consider ourselves saved by his grace.
The work isn’t done there. While the work of salvation was certainly done by Jesus; there is a response due from us to work it out in our daily lives. I am not always brave enough to ask God, “Is there anything you want from me?”
Yet I know, this is the key to growing up.
Just like a baby who doesn’t progress is developmentally delayed, we can be spiritually delayed.
And I fear I often am.
When I look at what I claim to believe, I need to examine if I look as “old” as I should be.
Time to look at our Father and ask him, is it time to grow up?

1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.