Amelia stood at the end of the kitchen island, sticker sheet in hand, matching uppercase letters to the alphabet page in her notebook. Ezra climbed up beside her and reached for a sticker so I pulled out his notebook, flipped to the first blank page and handed him a sheet of animal stickers. He eagerly began tearing away one animal after another, mostly by halves, and stacking them one atop another instead of spreading them across the page. At two, he still needs assistance and supervision. Amelia looked over and moaned, “I want an activity like Ezra’s.” “You did sticker pages and color matching when you were two, baby girl,” I responded. “You’re four now. You’re ready for more.”
I pointed her toward the next letter she needed to find and she pulled it off the sticker sheet and started to put it onto her paper when she saw Ezra hold up a fox sticker, somehow mostly intact. “I want a fox sticker too,” she whined. I touched the letter sticker still on the tip of her finger and redirected her attention to her page. “Finish up your letters and you’ll get to work with your scissors and glue stick, remember?” I encouraged. She worked busily for a minute or two until Jake barked and a delivery van pulled into the drive.
Attempting to explain to Christians converted from Judaism just how Jesus fulfilled the ultimate purpose of the priesthood as our High Priest, the author of Hebrews sounds a little like I was feeling keeping Amelia on track this morning. Jesus had risen and ascended and the Holy Spirit was given. The persecution of the early church scattered believers across the known world so all that was familiar about worshipping God at the temple in Jerusalem or gathering in local synagogues was replaced by house churches and small gatherings outside the city like the one where the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to receive the apostle Paul’s message and she and her household were saved. (Acts 16:14) Commentators suspect that these Jewish believers were having second thoughts, wondering whether they ought to just go back to the old ways under the old covenant. It will always be a temptation to drift back into what is familiar and comfortable. Stretching ourselves, continually learning, moving outside our comfort zones, and pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me will always require determination and concerted effort. I capitalize on every burst of forward momentum. Like my pregnant daughter says of early mornings with her two young sons, “I feel better if I just get up when they’re awake. Trying to get them to rest longer is self defeating.”
“There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen.
You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others.
Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word.
You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.
For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right.
Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.”
Hebrews 5:11-14 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/heb.5.11-14.NLT
Paul wrote similarly to the church at Corinth.
“Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people.
I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.
I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger.
And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature.
You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other.
Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature?
Aren’t you living like people of the world?”
1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1co.3.1-3.NLT
After redirecting Amelia for what seemed like the tenth time in the course of matching twenty-six uppercase letters, she suddenly realized she was only four letters away from completing her assignment. Her entire demeanor transformed as she hurriedly placed those last letters. It’s easy to become discouraged when you feel so far from finishing this race called life. On the one hand, I never want it to end. I want to see my grandchildren‘s children like my Granny did and then some. At the same time my spirit cries with the Spirit and the bride, “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” Only in fixing my eyes on the Author and Perfecter of my faith can I live each moment in step with His Spirit, accomplishing His purpose in my generation. Amelia prayed for me tonight what I usually pray aloud for her. From Luke 2:52, she prayed, “Help Lolly grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man just like You did, Jesus.” To that I say, “Amen, baby girl! Amen!”
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
Ephesians 4:11-16 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/eph.4.15.NIV
“So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe.
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.
So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.
There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
Hebrews 4:14-16 NLT
A Fitting Reply 