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Where do you want to go in 2021? You can decide!
We are poised at the beginning of the New Year. As we navigate the future, some will choose a different route than you took in 2020. Others will stay on the same road traveled, perhaps for decades, following the same old ways that have failed in the past. Some will deliberately choose a selfish course while others will make a new commitment to God’s best.
After my time in the 101st Airborne, I was a mapmaker for the Army Corps of Engineers. An accurate map has often meant the difference between life and death, escape and capture, rescue and loss.
My father’s B–17 in WW–II was on night training across the USA. Somehow, both compass and radio failed. There they were, roaring across the sky in a huge bomber (the B–17 was nicknamed “Flying Fortress”) and their only contact with the real world was gravity. Fuel was running low; their lives were in the balance.
By chance (unless you believed, as the crew did, that God was flying with their Christian tail gunner, my Dad), one of the pilots saw a familiar pattern of lights from a previous assignment. They found the runway and landed safely!
If you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, it can be fatal—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially.
The paper roadmap has gone the way of the dinosaur! Today’s maps are digital and don’t provoke the notorious map–folding problem. They save time, expense and frustration. They can also save lives.
Moment of Truth: If we aim at nothing, we are sure to hit it. What does God want me to aim for in 2021?
PERSONAL SPIRITUALITY
Spiritual age should reflect ‘growth’
Hebrews 5 says longevity equals maturity (“By this time you ought to be teachers …”)
My father worked as a social worker in an Ohio children’s home. There were four siblings there, including one age 12. Hermie was a pathetic kid. Though almost a teen, his parents had babied him all his life. They carried him, fed him, dressed him, did everything for him. Hermie could hardly do anything for himself.
When he came to the children’s home, he was required to do everything for himself. But he had not matured as you would expect from a kid that age.
Some of his efforts were hilarious, if you were an insensitive 15–year–old, like I was. Occasionally his big sister would try to help him, but the staff required him to take care of himself, in age–appropriate ways, for his own good. I remember him crying like a baby because he had to do things for himself that others used to do. Looking back, it was sad, and maturing out of it must have been painful for the poor lad.
Hermie reminds me of Hebrews 5:12, the longer we are Christians, the more mature we should be. It’s really that simple.
Christian maturity is demonstrated by intake of solid food, not just milk. And one result of mature Christianity is having a godly sense of right and wrong. It is developed and matured by practicing right versus wrong. Our measuring stick has to be the Bible. This process can be explained by the expression, “Right living according to God’s Word.”
NEXT Time: What does Hebrews 5 mean by ‘Milk’ and ‘Solid Food’?