Food For Growth
Preached at College Heights Baptist Church, Lubbock, TX 
by Dr. Rickey Honea Wed. 1/21/98

When I was a child, back in those years when I was still known as a very small boy. I wanted desperately to grow. My mom would measure my height against the wall in my room, and I would stretch as hard as I could to be a little taller. As a later became a parent, I saw my own son do the same thing. Every child, it seems, wants to grow up by the day after tomorrow, but it can not be done.

That is a frustrating thing to learn when your name around the neighborhood might be something like tiny Tim, Pee-Wee or Junior.
I would become so frustrated I would cry out, I just want to be bigger. I would protest, How can I make myself grow.
As a wise adult, what you would probably say is, "SON, you can not make yourself grow. Growing up takes time. But here's what you can do. You can Eat good food, exercise, and enjoy being an nine year old child. You will grow up fast enough!

I find Christians who are worried and bothered to the point of making themselves absolute emotional wrecks, worried over the progress they think they should be making in their Christian growth.. However, you can not make yourself grow spiritually any more than you can make your self grow physically. We forget that it is GOD who is in the business of conforming us to the likeness of Christ ( Romans 8:29)

We forget that it is "HE WHO began a good wok in you and will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6)

This is not to say that we have no decision to make or role to play, after all, the Bible says that we should "WORK out our salvation with fear and trembling" Phil 2:12

But we need to be clear on what the passage means. After saying in verse 12 that we should WORK out our own salvation Paul says, "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose."

So once again, we find that in the Christian life God initiates and man responds.

DEFINITION OF RESPONSIBILITY IS: My response to God's ability.

A good way to paraphrase these verses is:

"In a humble and dependent attitude, work out on the outside of your life what God is doing on the inside." We do not grow ourselves, God is on the inside of us "To will and to do according to His good purpose"

Our Goal is to walk in an intimate , living , faith relationship with our heavenly Father, and to cooperate with what He is doing in our lives.

Even at the age of nine, you can not make yourself grow physically, but you can eat good food, exercise, and enjoy being a nine year old kid. In our spiritual lives, we cannot make ourselves grow in grace, but we can do some things, we can eat good food, exercise and enjoy walking through life as a child of God as He grows us in His time. But what do I mean by "eating good food and exercising?"

These are the subjects that feed us, strengthen us that help us to grow in our understanding of God, His lifestyle, His will. etc ........

Bible study, Prayer, and our Relationship within the body of Christ.
Most of these subjects have been twisted in the churches to the point they no longer have the impact nor the meaning they were intended to have on us.

We have taken these activities which should be natural and enjoyable overflows of our life in Christ and our personal relationship with Him and turned them into disciplines.

There is NO greater way to ruin these wonderful privileges we have as children of God or to rob us of our joy in knowing Him than to view them as disciplines. Many teach that these things have to be done in order for you to be a good Christian and many even teach that you have to do them in order to be a good Christian. Yet these teachings are so far from the truth.

So lets get down to our study:

When I was born in Christ, I came to Him as a 9 year old boy. I knew absolutely nothing about the things of God. I had very little religious teaching in my background to speak of. All I knew the day I received Christ was that "GOD so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoeverwill believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16)

I was simply overwhelmed with the idea that GOD actually loved me!

Naturally, I did not understand all that I read. There were many parts of the Scriptures that were a mystery to me, and as many a young Christians do, I came up with a lot of ideas and interpretations that seem pretty silly to me today.
God did teach me understanding as He soon began to reveal HIMSELF to me over time.
The more I read, the more my understanding grew.
I look back over those early years and I can remember some of the most joyful times of my life.
I truly came to God as a little child and leaned totally on Him to teach me.
Nobody told me I HAD to study the Bible, and I am glad they did not.

I Cor. 15:56 The power of sin is the law.

Hammering people with what they OUGHT to be doing is the most effective way to stir up rebellion and resistance in them. At the very least, it spoils your joy and freedom in Bible Study when it becomes an OBLIGATION rather than a PRIVILEGE.

I did not follow some scheduled program of study. It never occurred to me that I was doing something I was supposed to do. I simply opened God's Word and read it because that is what I wanted to do more than anything on earth. This desire came naturally to me after I was saved.

Here are some tips, that I want to pass on to you that have helped many to discover the great experience of personally digging into the Word of God.

I. READ THE BIBLE IN ORDER TO GET TO KNOW CHRIST, NOT JUST TO LEARN BIBLE FACTS.

We have been called into a relationship.
John 17:3 " Jesus said, Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. Paul wrote; Phil 3:8 I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord"

Don't make the same mistake I did later. I lost the joy of studying God's Word because I was soon taught that I had to do this and that in order to stay right with God and that included reading my Bible. This caused me to strayed from my personal excited pursuit to reveal my personal relationship with Christ and this led me into a dry knowledge, barren service and discouragement on my part for not maintaining the religious standards that I was being taught.. Do not get on that terrible treadmill of the SEARCH for something more.
Do not fall into the deception of believing that we start out with Christ , then GRADUATE to the deep things of God.

JESUS CHRIST IS EVERYTHING you can not get any deeper than that !!!!!!!!!

There is nothing deeper than knowing Christ intimately. That is what we will do throughout eternity and that is to daily discover and enjoy the wonders of Him. We will never get to the end of all the He is. He is limitless. Eternal, Never ending, On and On !!!!!! Get it?

In all my years in school I never studied a textbook to get to know the author.
Example: I never studied a biology textbook to get to know the scientist who wrote it. No!
I studied that I might learn more about how to pass my test. I had no desire to get to know the author, I just wanted to pass the test. I was not interested in its author.

POINT: that is where a lot of Christians are today, they think they have to pass the test when really all God wants us to do is to get to know Him, to Love Him with all our souls, minds, hearts and bodies. To love Him just because He is our God.

The Bible is different, I study it to get to know the Author.
The purpose of reading and studying God's Word is first and foremost, to get to know Him, the Author. If all I do is to go through the Bible to learn Bible facts, I will get those dry facts, but nothing else. That will produce a dry faith, a dry walk and a dry concept of God.

BUT, if I go to the Bible desiring to meet personally with the Lord, He will open my heart to know Him, and teach me biblical facts at the same time. Every time I open my Bible, it is with this spoken and unspoken prayerful attitude: 'LORD, I CANNOT UNDERSTAND THIS BIBLE UNLESS YOU TEACH ME. I certainly cannot know YOU unless You reveal Yourself to me, and teach me the truth that will set me free. Please Lord give me wisdom and guidance as I continue my study that I might get to know you better and in a deeper more meaningful way so that I can love you more every day"

We have assurance that He will abundantly respond to our desire, in fact, He is actively seeking intimacy with us, and He desires our response.

Jesus said " Rev. 3:20 "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will go in and eat with him, and he with Me"

We are dealing with a God who is excited about you and I getting to know Him one on one!
God is so in love with us that He can not take His eyes off of us.What a tragedy for someone to see their Bible study as a discipline, a drudgery an unrewarding duty that we have to perform when it really is a privilege.

II. STUDY DEPENDENTLY.

We can not understand spiritual truth in our own understanding. Eph 3:18-19
Anybody including the LOST can learn theology. That is, "they can learn what the BIBLE SAYS"

But if we truly want to KNOW God and to understand what the Bible means, we must approach the WORD with total dependence upon the LORD to reveal Himself and His truth that sets us free. Remember that "GOD opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble JAMES 4:6

III. Read the Bible normally and in large contexts.

Imagine that you an I are friends, and while on a long trip overseas you write me a long letter. After many months away, you arrive home and find me waiting form you at the airport. I look terribly confused and worried, as if I had been in that condition for a long time. After greeting me, you ask me why I seem so distressed. It is this letter you sent me., I have gone practically crazy trying to understand it. I then pull out of my pocket a pieces of paper from several pages of the letter you wrote to me. At the same time you are confused because you do not remember writing anything that was confusing to me. It this part on page 4 I say, the pages are covered with highlighters, red lines, notes, meaning of words from dictionaries, I tell you that I even got together with all my friends to try to have discussions to figure it all out. But no one satisfied me, I have been waiting on pens an needles to see you so I could ask you what all does this letter mean.

You then ask me, DID you read the rest of the letter? NO, I've been studying this sentence.
What would you think of me? No one would read a letter that way.You always start at the beginning and read it to the end.

But many read their bibles that way today, they start at Heb. 9 verse 3 when the writer thinks that the reader has already read chapters 1 - 8. If they had only read the first 8 chapters, then chapter 9 would have made sense.
As a new Christian, there were many things at first that did not make sense. Many things that I did not fully understand, but I did not let that stop me from reading. I did not expect God to teach me everything in one day.
Even Jesus told his disciples on the night before His death
John 16:12-13 I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth."

So, when ever I come across a hard verse or passage I simply put a checkmark by it with the prayer "Lord. this must be one of those thing I am not ready for, but you know that, whenever you decide, I am here to learn what it means."

Then I would continue reading. Many times as I would continue reading, maybe several verses down, I would say, AAAAHHHH !!!! there it is, now I understand .The more I read the more I understand over time.

IV. Emphasize the New Testament in your study.

We live in the New Covenant, and it is essential that we clearly understand the covenant under which we actually live. Only when you have gotten a firm handle on the provision of the New Covenant are you able to properly interpret and apply the Old Covenant.

I Cor 11:25 Jesus said "This cup is the New Covenant in My blood"

Through the cross the OLD Covenant was fulfilled and the NEW Covenant was put into effect. The cross is the real dividing point of history not the old and new covenants.

Heb. 9:16-17 In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living.'

Not only does the writer have to die, but it is only his last will that counts.Reading old versions of my earthy fathers will might be fun and enjoyable but it is his last will that is binding.

POINT: Reading about all the history of the O.T. and those in the Bible is neat, exciting, and fun, but it is HIS last will and testament known to us as the New Testament that is binding. Now, Do not get me wrong, I think we ought to read the whole Bible and study the whole Bible, But I am saying that we need to fully understand the New Testament of Christ if we are to ever be able to fully understand the Old Testament. Once you understand His Grace and Mercy you will be able to understand all that God allowed to take place in the O.T.

V. Last of all, major on the majors and minor on the minors.

Do you know what someone who is having serious problems wants to know, they want to know if God is really out there, does He love me, does He care can He do something for me?

The minors at that time is the how many times did Naham get baptized. 
How many times did they have to march around the walls of Jericho.

The majors is" CHRIST !!!!!!!!!

Do you know CHRIST personally. Learning that He now lives in you. Learning how to live a life of dependency on Christ's love and Grace for us, concentrating on the priority left to us by the Lord: These are the MAJORS that we must focus on first.

John 13: 34-35 A new command I give you, Love one another, As I have love you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another."

God did not say, All men will know you by your bumper stickers. nor by your knowledge of prophecy. nor by the tongues you speak in, or the shouts of glory for all to hear !

When John summed up the commandment of God, he put it this way, This is His command. to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us. (I John 3:23)

Many today are like the Pharisees in Matthew 23:24 they strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
They misuse the Word of God
Many use the Word to create competition and pride.
Many use prophecy to expand their ego

Inv.

We need to get into God's Word applying these tips:
Seeking to meet with the Person Jesus Christ, Studying dependently, Reading in order verse by verse and in large contexts, emphasizing the New Testament, and majoring on the majors, you will find that the Bible is not nearly the mystery book you had thought.

The TRUTH will set you free! If the Son Of God has set you free, you are free indeed!

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