Where Are You?

Vol 2 No 37 THEO'S DEVOS 091808

Mark 4:33 He used many such stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they were able to understand.

Where are you? I know just what you are thinking. What kind of a question is that for a devotional. But hold on for just a second. I'm not concerned about your physical location. I am more interested in where you are on this journey called life. The Apostle John refers to three stages of Christian growth. Children, young men and fathers. We have looked at the specifics of these levels of growth before. For now let's just ask this question. On the road to Christian maturity: where are you? Please be careful here. Before you jump to the conclusion that you are grown up in the Lord remember this: you can be a Christian for 50 years and still be a novice. One other point is that if you think about it you will admit that quite often people who think they are mature in the Lord are simply folk who think that they have arrived. That they have nothing more to learn. They can sit in church on Sunday and get bored because they haven't 'learned' anything that day. Before going any further why not read these verses in their context: Mark 4:30-34.

Often, as Christian leaders, we can make the mistake of thinking that everyone should be at the same place on the Christian path as we are. We think that because a person has been a Christian for several years, they must be well along toward maturity, only to find out that, once put in a position of responsibility, they act as though they had just gotten saved. Or they place their own needs and thoughts above others. They believe that the church is there for them instead of a rescue station reaching out to lost and wounded people. It is the parent that complains that their child is being affected by the unsaved kids that the youth ministry is trying to reach for the Lord. They think that the church should be a place where their kids should be sheltered from the unsaved of the world. They want to be out of the world and not of it instead of in the world and not of it. It would be like going to the hospital and complaining about all the sick people that were there.

Having said all that, where are you? If you aren't sure what to answer, you may just be honest. Can you say that you are growing? That you are further along than you were last year or ten years in the past. Our verse today touches on this. Jesus knew that everyone was not at the same point in life. He taught them things that they were able to understand and not things beyond them. It is good that God treats us in this way because, frankly, we would never be able to understand if God were to show us too far into the future. Next week exists in a fog bank because God is preparing us for what will happen then, knowing we are not ready to handle it now. God reveals what we need to know, when we need to know it and not before. He never gives us the grace we need until we need it which is why we are often blown away by what other Christians are able to go through. We don't know what we would do if that happened to us. But the good side is that He will show us what we need to know when we need to know it so that nothing threatens us. He exists in our future and is preparing us for it.

Fear not Jesus liked to say. Why? Because for the believer there is nothing to fear except trying to fight against God. If you try to do that then be afraid, be very afraid. He let His only Son die to provide us with salvation. He is not someone to play around with. Of course many of us have already found that out and we are happy to inform the rest of you of this truth. God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay that way. When we are with other Christians, lets remember that they are in a process of growth just as we are and they may not be where we think they should be but, have no fear, they will get there by the grace of God, one way or the other.

May God bless you today as you walk with Him.

Theo