"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 (Hebrews 5:12)!"
It is a fact of life; if you don't know the basics and put them into practice you will not experience growth. If you don't know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply, how do you expect to do geometry, trigonometry or calculus? If you don't understand the fundamentals of a particular sport then how will you excel at playing that sport? The old adage, "You must learn to crawl before you can walk" applies here as well. There is no difference when it comes to the things of the Lord. Have you ever prayed for the Lord to "take you deeper" in your understanding of Him? Sometimes you may hear a Christian quote the scriptures when they say, "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33)." This is often used as encouragement to pursue a "deeper" understanding of the Lord. Although, instructions on how to do this or how to measure your progress are rarely given. A pastor once said, "How do we expect God to teach us the deeper things when we don't understand the things He has already revealed?" I have heard stories of pastors answering their own altar calls. I once read an account of a man who had been a Christian nearly 60 years and still thought God was holding a sin he committed decades ago against him. And there are countless stories of Christians who have lost the joy of their salvation because they feel God has abandoned them in some way or that God no longer loves them for one reason or another. Therefore, they suffer in silence; afraid to tell anyone their struggles. Often times the decisions they make in life are a byproduct of this lack of understanding and their struggles are compounded. Unfortunately, they cannot go to their churches or other Christians because it is through them that they learned these beliefs in the first place. I truly believe that these issues can be traced back to a person not knowing or not understanding the basics of the Christian faith.
The basics of the faith start with an understanding of the Gospel. How many Christians can answer the question, "What is the Gospel?" To put it more directly, how many Christians can define what the problem is between man and God (Hint: it is not sin.) Why is Jesus Christ the only means of salvation? What is the true meaning of the death of Jesus Christ? What is the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? I have told this story before, but it bears repeating. I once asked a Christian friend of mine, "Can you explain to me what the Gospel is?" I did not ask it to make them feel bad or exalt myself in some way. This person was struggling with their faith and I wanted to try and get to the root of the problem. When they attempted to answer me all they could muster was a shrug of the shoulders as if to say, "I don't know." Therefore, I asked them, "If you do not know what the Gospel is, what did you accept to become a Christian?" Also, "What do you proclaim to others?" I know of a story where a person responded to that question by saying, "It [the Gospel] is something in your heart that you can't put into words." The person asking the question responded with, "It makes you wonder how it ever got out of Jerusalem." So as not to leave you hanging, in short, the Gospel is sin, death, forgiveness and the restoration of life. Adam sinned and God removed His life from Adam. Therefore Adam died spiritually. All mankind is born in the image of Adam; physically alive to the world, but spiritually dead to God. Jesus, God in the flesh, was the only man with a life to give that would satisfy God as payment for our sins. Therefore, God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, can offer His life as a free gift to all who accept Jesus Christ by faith. That life is an eternal life because there is no sin that can cause God to remove His life again because of the eternal forgiveness available through the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Those, in a nutshell, are the basics of the Christian faith. Many people claim to believe them, but because of other things they believe in addition to that, their growth is stunted and they remain babies in Christ most of their lives; needing spiritual milk (the basics) instead of being able to eat solid food and go deeper in their relationship with the Lord.
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