February 24, 2023: 1 Peter 2:1-3 - Let Us Grow in our Faith
“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” - 1 Peter 2:1-2
What do infants need in order to grow? They need milk, and not just any milk but the kind of milk that provides all the nutrients formulated just right, designed by God, that gives them what they need to grow their bodies and their brains. Their brains are responding to stimuli, and they are forming the synapses that provide them with the ability to learn and communicate. In fact the brain of a newborn baby, “…already has about all of the neurons it will ever have. It doubles in size in the first year, and by age three it has reached 80 percent of its adult volume. Even more importantly, synapses are formed at a faster rate during these years than at any other time.” (See: http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/why-0-3/baby-and-brain).
The first milk that an infant will receive from his or her mother is colostrum. Colostrum is a special milk that a mother’s body produces first, and it is specially formulated to build the newborn’s immune system and protect from infection. Colostrum then changes to breast milk two to four days after the newborn is born and lasts for about two weeks. Thereafter, the milk turns to mature milk and lasts as long as the mother is nursing. (See: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/22434-colostrum).
Similarly, we are new believers in Christ should desire the pure milk of God’s word, and we should grow in our faith. Just as a newborn baby grows by consuming the nutrient-rich milk and then moves from drinking milk to soft food and then solid food, so should we grow in our faith; we should not be stuck in the milk-phase of being born again in Christ.
When we are first born again, I believe God gives us, through the Holy Spirit, the essentials of His word that we need to sustain us:
John 3:16-18: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Ephesians 2:8: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
When we have believed that Jesus as our Savior, when we have come to that point in our lives, that, as David wrote, we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good:
“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” (Psalm 34:8)
At the instant we are saved by believing in Jesus as our Savior, we are filled with His Holy Spirit, who helps us understand God’s word when we read it. But if we do not read it for ourselves regularly, we won’t ever grow out of that newborn stage of being a child of God, never moving off of the milk to the solid food stage, which is where we really begin to grow in our faith. I think many new believers make the mistake of relying on other people’s interpretation of God’s word instead of reading it for ourselves. Instead of getting the rich food formulated by God Himself in His word, they are getting an equivalent of “fast food.” Don’t get me wrong, I think it is important to read commentaries on Scripture but we must do this in addition to reading God’s word for ourselves because people, myself included,can be incorrect in our understanding of the Scriptures, or sometimes, people can intentionally twist the word of God to accommodate and/or justify their own sins. We must rely on the Holy Spirit first to teach us about God’s word.
As Peter first said in today’s Scripture verses, we must lay aside, “…all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking,” for if we do not, we are not ready to move to the solid food of God’s word; rather, we are still in the newborn or milk stage of our born-again lives. Why is this the case? Consider that you are telling someone about Jesus but that same person has heard you cuss, perhaps even using the Lord’s name in a derogatory way, or heard you say that they shouldn’t do something when you yourself have done that very thing? How seriously are they going to consider what you say to them about Jesus? I am guilty of this myself, and I believe that is why my understanding of the Bible was at a certain shallow level for years because I was stuck in the milk phase of my growth as a child of God.
The apostle Paul wrote about this very thing when he wrote to the church of Corinth. In my Bible, the introduction to 1 Corinthians says, “First Corinthians reveals the problems, pressures, and struggles of a church called out of a pagan society. Paul addresses a variety of problems in the lifestyle of the Corinthian church.” In the passage of Scripture below, Paul is addressing the problems that they have amongst themselves, as believers in Christ.
“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)
As Peter mentioned in today’s Scriptures verses, we should grow in our faith, if indeed we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Similarly, the writer of Hebrews, whom many believe is the apostle Paul, wrote:
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” (Hebrews 5:12-14)
In the Scripture above, notice that last part: “those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” It is only by moving from milk to solid food by reading and hearing God’s word that we will, by having our senses exercised through the Holy Spirit, be able to discern both good and evil. This is absolutely critical in the end times in which we are living. The first thing Jesus Christ warned His disciples about that would be a sign of His second coming and of the end of the age was, “Take heed that no one deceives you.” (Matthew 24:4). Jesus went on in this chapter to tell them of false christs and false prophets rising up and doing many things to deceive them. His warnings are written all throughout Matthew 24. If we are still stuck in the milk phase, we are vulnerable to being deceived. If we truly have seen and tasted that the Lord is gracious and good, we must move out of the milk phase and into the solid food phase of our spiritual lives, reading His word everyday, praying for the Holy Spirit to help us understand His word, and pray that He would give us the ability to discern who is of Him, who is not of Him, and only to listen to who is of Him, for deceivers are all around us. ✝️