By Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel

“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. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food” Hebrews 5:12.

Babies naturally aren’t able to make good decisions on their own. An immature Christian is like a baby, a spiritual baby, depending on people to do things for them. Spiritual babies get easily upset and frustrated by every little thing. Just like infants and young children, they whine, cry, throw tantrums when they don’t get their way. In addition, spiritual babies don’t know what their blessings are and do not know how to receive them. If we remain spiritual babies, we won’t be able to understand God’s word. “For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong” (Hebrew 5:14)

“For you are still [unspiritual, having the nature] of the flesh [under the control of ordinary impulses]. For as long as [there are] envying and jealousy and wrangling and factions among you, are you not unspiritual and of the flesh, behaving yourselves after a human standard and like mere (unchanged) men?” (1 Corinthians 3:3). The Corinthian church in the bible were spiritual babies who couldn’t make the right decisions. They didn’t understand the importance of respect or having a sense of sacredness. God said they were of the flesh and unspiritual. They had no honor for the church of God. Their church meetings were full of disorder, each member wanted to push their own personal agenda. This led to disagreements amongst the members. They were disdaining the body of Christ, seeking preeminence, and wanting honor for themselves. The Corinthians were fed with milk not solid food because they weren’t strong enough just like babies. The bible instructs us to do all things decently and in order.

The body of Christ today is not so different than the Corinthians. A lot of Christians are still relying on others to seek God on their behalf and are easily swayed by people claiming they had visions and prophetic dreams. We often associate being spiritual to how often we pray, attend church service, the number of ministries we are part of and the number of years we have been Christians. These things are commendable, but are not the sole proof that we are spiritual.

The number one proof of a spirit filled person is stability under any circumstance, not being controlled by their feelings, emotions and their carnal mind and exhibit the fruits of the spirit.  The spirit life will reveal a life of love. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” 1 John 4:8. The love of God is the litmus test of spiritual maturity. The love of God is measured by loving your enemies. It’s natural human desire to love those who love you, but only God’s divine love can make you love your enemies. Jesus Christ exemplified this love by giving up his life for us while we still sinners. That is the core nature of the new spirit life that every Spirit led Christian should have. We must seek out opportunities to serve others and exhibit this true love to people around us.

A spirit life is a life under the control and influence of the Holy Spirit. It is not fazed by what others do. People’s actions don’t dictate theirs; this is because they are led by the spirit. A non-spirit Christian hasn’t found the glory of allowing God to really be God; that is allowing God to take absolute control of every action, decision and move we make. This means completely surrendering and yielding our life and will to God. Spirit filled Christians are not reactive, they don’t count wrong doings.

“And so now, I entrust you into God’s hands and the message of his grace, which is all that you need to become strong. All of God’s blessings are imparted through the message of his grace, which he provides as the spiritual inheritance given to all of his holy ones” Acts 20:32.

We change from a from non-spirit life to a spirit led life by feeding on the Word of God. Man shall not live on bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. The Word is spiritual food. We need to eat the Word, drink it, digest it, meditate on it, act on it and let it penetrate our lives and be lived out for the world to see through our actions. This is how we build our spiritual muscles; this is how we graduate from spiritual babies to mature adults that can handle solid foods.

Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel is the Senior Pastor of The Fountain of the Living Word Church, New Jersey.