“Therefore, let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God…”
Hebrews 6:1 (AMPC)
Paul, with brokenness of heart, pleaded with the people of God in Corinth because in their current spiritual condition, he COULD NOT minister to them the meat of the Word!
“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet NOW are ye able.”
1 Corinthians 3:1-2
May God in mercy open our eyes. These were people saved by the blood, who had received the gifts of the Spirit, and were able to minister and prophesy so that even an unbeliever in their midst would exclaim that surely “God was IN their midst”! (1 Corinthians 14:23-25)
Yet Paul called them carnal and unable to receive the deeper truths of God! May God show us the vastness of His Call and resources. May He stir us to see the “prize of the upward Call”.
Let US GO ON
Can we not hear the cry of the Holy Spirit? Do we not feel our current limitations? If the Church of God at Corinth, which moved powerfully in the gifts of the Spirit, fell short of knowing God, what must be His estimation of us?
The Holy Spirit was hindered from opening to them the greater wonder of Christ in His Word. What about those in our day who deny the power and the giftings of His Spirit? What of those who are content with ‘the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ’, who feel no need or impulse to be “advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity”? (Hebrews 6:1)
How can we read the Holy Scriptures without hearing the voices that beckon us on to greater things in Him? (Acts 13:27)
“For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day…”
Acts 13:27
Reading the scriptures, by which we hear the voices of the prophets, will have little or no effect upon our lives apart from the illumination of His Spirit. That was so back in those days; may it not be so with us!
“All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be perfected, being fully furnished for every good work.…”
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Any ministry that does not seek to equip the people of God, to “furnish” them to “every good work”, is failing to minister the Word properly.
The scriptures are God-breathed. For them to be of eternal value within us requires the same breath of life that we may live within their power. May we continually feel the impulse to “move on” into greater things in Him.
Let Us Go On!
“12 Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.
13 I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
15 So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions; and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also.”
Philippians 3:12-15 (AMPC)
Related Post: Let Us Go On – Mary (LINK)
“All growth that is not towards God is growing to decay. If you have nothing of the spirit of prayer, nothing of the love of the brotherhood, nothing of mortifying the spirit of the world, nothing of growth in grace, of cordial, habitual, persevering obedience to the Divine commands, how can it be that you have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ ?”
— Gardiner Spring
Let Us Go On!
Brian Troxel
