LIKE NEWBORN BABIES….

1 Peter 2:2 counsels us, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”

Curious about what more might be in that verse than what I, as a man, might tend to notice, I asked for insights from my friend Kelli who is a certified lactation coach. Kelli pointed to the amazing way in which God designed the human body so that the milk produced by a mom includes chemicals that are vitally important specific to her baby’s age and development. For example, Kelli pointed to a mutual friend who recently gave birth to a baby many weeks prematurely. (The baby girl weighed 1 pound 6 ounces at birth.) This mom’s milk includes chemicals that provide extra protection to an infant this young and this needy. As this baby (or as any baby) grows, chemicals within the milk change to fit the needs of the baby’s development. (By the way, this little girl is almost 3 months now and growing well!)

Bring this back to 1 Peter 2:2. It is not that a new Christian and a long-time believer read different words in the Bible, but the living God takes the Word of God and applies it to our lives in the way that is appropriate to us for where we are in our spiritual growth.

A baby is intimately aware of his or her desperate need for this life-sustaining and life-growing fluid from its mother, and the baby cries out to receive his or her fill of this wonderful milk. How often do I recognize my desperate need to be nourished by God’s Word? How often do I cry out to God to be fed by God?

At least two things that I need to realize from this verse stand out to me: 1: As desperately as a baby needs its mother’s milk, I need God’s nourishment in my life. 2: I need to recognize that when I feed upon God’s Word, God will apply to my life what I am ready for in my spiritual growth. I ought to be looking for how God will be feeding me for this point in my growth, and I ought to expect it to be different for me today than it was last year and different from what it will be next year.