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“You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word.” (Hebrews 5:12, NLT)
They say that a preacher’s wife is his number one assistant — and sometimes, his most honest critic. One Sunday after worship, a preacher asked his wife, “How do you think the service went?”
She said, “The worship was excellent. I thought the singing and the communion were meaningful. How do you think your sermon went?”
He said, “Honestly, I don’t think it ever got off the ground.”
Without missing a beat, she replied, “Well, it sure did taxi long enough!”
Ouch!
Let’s face it: Sometimes we talk a lot without really going anywhere. That can happen in a sermon… but it can also happen in our lives. We read Scripture, we attend worship, we say all the right things — but spiritually, we’re still taxiing around the runway, never quite lifting off.
It’s easy to settle into a pattern of spiritual maintenance instead of spiritual growth. We know the basics. We know the stories. We’ve heard the sermons. But are we becoming more like Jesus? Are we loving more deeply, serving more selflessly, forgiving more freely, and trusting more completely? Or are we just taxiing… again?
The writer of Hebrews saw this same tendency in his readers. In Hebrews 5, he rebuked them by saying, “You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word.” (Hebrews 5:12 NLT)
They had enough knowledge to be leaders. But they hadn’t matured beyond spiritual infancy. It wasn’t that they didn’t know the truth — it was that they hadn’t yet been shaped by it.
But the writer didn’t leave them there. He urged them forward: “So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding.” (Hebrews 6:1, NLT)
God didn’t call us to spiritual stagnation. He called us to transformation. There’s a time to learn, but there’s also a time to grow. Eventually, God calls us to do something with what we’ve learned. Our goal is not just to know more, but to become more. Not just to sit in church, but to be the church. Let’s stop circling the airport. It’s time to fly!
Prayer: Father, help me to not be content with just talking about my faith, but to live it out boldly. Help me to move beyond the basics and into a deeper walk with you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Alan Smith
Reprinted with permission from Alan Smith's Thought For the Day
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