Milk & Meat Part 2 - with Pastor Marci Glisson

Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast

from St. Augustine, FL.

Now enjoy this message. So we've been talking about milk

and meat, haven't we? The milk and meat of the word.

And last week we talked about the fact that every child who

has a good, good father wants them to grow properly.

We solidified last week that last Wednesday that we can see

clearly through Scripture that God expects His children to

grow. He expects his children to go

from, we've proved through Scripture from what the

Scripture calls babes or infants that only desire the sincere

milk of the word. And then we saw that he expects

and and realizes that when we used to think like a child.

Now it's time that we are to grow up and think like a man,

right? And put away what childish

things say. Put away childish things.

Hallelujah. So we saw that we go from

infants to children and then lets us know that He expects us,

each and every one of us, to grow into maturity, right?

To grow into a mature man, right and we are talking about growing

spiritually and he relates that to how we can grow in the

natural as a, a, a baby being born into the earth, right And

when we get born again into the Kingdom of God, we are all

spiritual. What babies that have to grow.

And that's what's so wonderful about our father who is good is

he's going to make sure that his children have everything they

need to grow properly in the Kingdom of God and and not be

dysfunctional in any way, not be dysfunctional in any way because

God came to give us life and life more abundantly.

He came to get rid of all dysfunction or abnormal

moralities in this world that we all encountered in our fallen

state with a tyrannical ruler who is named Satan, who was the

father of us all because of sin. We've all what?

Fallen short of the glory of God, right?

We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, every

single one of us. But thanks be to God,

Hallelujah, thanks be to our good, good Father that He sent

his Son to redeem man, to put us back in a place that we no

longer have to live in a dysfunctional way, right?

Or an abnormal way. And so he wants us all to grow

healthy, strong, and be able to spiritually see us be able to

reign in that. What we've been talking about

this year, having a reigning spirit.

And if we're going to have a reigning spirit, then we have to

realize we must be in a position to grow spiritually if we're

going to reign in this life. Because I know many babies, I

know many believers that do not reign in this life over their

circumstances, over their situations, over the trials, and

all the different things that this world brings to us.

They are not overcoming. They're letting these things

rule over them when we were created to rule over it and have

dominion over the things that are going on in this world.

Amen. Because our Father is such a

good Father that He did not leave us here, helpless and

barely able to get along and just make it by the skin of our

teeth into heaven. He didn't leave us.

Our Father is not that type of father.

He is a wonderful father. He's a good father.

And he has actually said he's chosen gladly to give us the

Kingdom and every promise belongs to us as an inheritance

for us to walk into this life, not just the one that we're

going to see when this thing is all said and done right.

He didn't want us just barely making it through life, beat

down, broke, looking like busted and disgusted like everybody

else. Marriage is falling apart like

everybody else, teenagers going to hell like everybody else.

Come on. He did not want us as his

children to have to live like that.

He wanted us to have a good life.

That's why it's called the good news.

Amen. And so there's some goodness of

God that He wants us to tap into.

Amen. And you know what?

It's going to take us realizing, you know what?

I am still acting like a baby about this situation, or I'm

still acting like a child about this situation.

And I need to actually, what did we say?

Look around to your neighbor and say what?

Grow up. Grow up.

We need to actually grow up and deal with some things that God

wants us to deal with so that we can just overcome and have and

enjoy this life, Amen. And enjoy living the good life,

the Kingdom life, Amen. And so we saw out of Ephesians,

I gave you tons of scriptures last week, but I do want to

reiterate this Scripture, Ephesians chapter 4, which was

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

our main scripture, 11 through 16.

And he gave some as apostles, prophets, evangelists, some as

pastors, teachers for the equipping of the Saints, for the

work of service. And we said, how do I know if a

believer is still immature or a babe?

The first indication is they don't serve the body because if

you've actually are being equipped, then you will what

serve. That's why you're being equipped

as a St. for the work of service, not just so that when

you die you get to go to heaven. It's for you to do the work of

service that He has for each and every one of us to do in the

earth until He returns. Amen.

And and so he says it's for the equipping of the Saints, for the

working, for the work of service to the building up of the body

of Christ. Another way we can know that

you're still not equipped or that you're still in a baby or

childish manner is that you're not thinking about the body of

Christ at all. You are only thinking of me,

myself and I and us four and no more.

Come on. But he says that when I get

equipped as a St., I'm going to serve and I'm going to be

recognizing that I have to facilitate helping build up the

body of Christ, to build up the body of Christ until we all

attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God

to a what a mature man say, I am a mature man to the measure of

the stature which which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

And we said this, that God is just like in the natural.

When you take your children to the pediatrician, they have a

measuring chart, don't they? To actually measure to see that

this child is actually developing and maturing and

growing properly according to the percentiles of children in

their age group. So guess what?

God does have a measuring stick. He is measuring.

Actually Pastor had mentioned the Scripture last or this past

Sunday out of I'm not sure, but he talked about you know, so and

so he has been weighed and in measured and found wanting.

Is that Daniel? He's been weighed and measured

and found wanting. So God is weighing some things

and is measuring some things. And we take weight as babies

too, because that is how you tell if they're having enough,

if they're getting enough food intake.

You know, I've known children that, you know, when they were

small, they're like, you need to feed them more because they're

not gaining enough. What?

And that's an indication of their growth and maturing.

So we know that God is in the weighing and measuring business.

And he said and I and I've seen that you are found wanting

lackey, you're lackey, Amen. So he is in the measuring

business. And so He is making sure that we

are growing properly and is keeping account where we as

believers ought to be, in his, in his charts, in his charts, to

the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of

Christ. As a result, this is what

happens if we will allow ourselves to mature and be

measured. Come on, it says.

As a result of these things, we will no longer be what children

will no longer be children tossed here and there by waves,

carried about by every wind of doctrine.

That means, listen, we're not going to be tossed here and

there through the trials of life.

We're not going to be good one day and down in the dumps the

next. We're not going to be on this

turmoil of our emotions and our circumstances from one day to

the next. Oh, you come to church on

Sunday? By the time Wednesday comes

around, you're in the Molly Grubs about a situation.

Whatever. You're being tossed back and

forth from 1 extreme to the next because you're not maturing.

But he listen, he says, tossed here and there by the waves,

carried about by every wind of doctrine.

That means you're getting carried away by what feels good.

You know all the doctrines that are telling you, You know just

whatever, OK? And the trickery of men, the

craftiness and the deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to what?

Grow up in all aspects, All aspects of Christ.

We are to grow up into not just bits and pieces of what we want

from God, but all of God we are to grow up into.

That's everything, all of who He is.

He wants us to walk in that and grow in that and mature in that.

Amen. So all aspects unto him who is

the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and

held together by every joint, supplies according to the power

working in each individual part that causes the growth of the

body for the building itself up in love.

This is another little side nugget that if you are not

growing, you're affecting someone else's growth.

Whether you want to believe it or not.

The scripture says it if you're not growing and maturing and

bringing a supply to the body of Christ, you are hindering the

body of right. Every individual part causes the

growth. Guess what?

It's not just our part to cause the growth.

It's every individual bringing a joint supply that help causes

the growth of the body. So you have a responsibility to

grow for someone else. Hallelujah.

So we started with that scripture and we realize we

talked about many, many, many other scriptures that prove that

He expects His children to grow spiritually.

Amen. But there's one that I did not

touch base with that I want to start with tonight.

And that is not only does he expect his children to grow, we

can see that Jesus grew and he's our what our example.

Jesus had to grow and mature into what he was as the Son of

man in the earth. He had to grow.

And if he had to grow, then what thinks makes us think that we

are not going to be held accountable to grow spiritually?

He had to grow. Look at it says in let me start

in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 5, which we read a few of these

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

scriptures last week out of Hebrews chapter 5.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

But I want to read it in full contact in verse eight through

14 since we're here. OK.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the

things which he suffered. And having been made perfect,

this word perfect is a Greek word that entails maturity.

Remember, we said a perfect man, a mature man, And having been

made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of

eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high

priest according to the order of Michelzadek.

Concerning him we have much to say.

It was hard to explain. Since you have become dull of

hearing. We're going to come back to that

in a minute, for though by this time you ought to be teachers,

you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary

principles or the oracles of God, and you have come to need

milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only

in milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is

an infant. That word accustom also means

unskillful. Do you know?

He wants us to be skilled. He wants us to be skilled.

And I believe he's raising up the mature church in these last

days that he's coming back for that is actually skillful.

Skillful, so they weren't accustomed to the word of

righteousness, for he is an infant.

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice

have their senses trained to discern evil.

But here we see that Jesus, the Son, he learned obedience.

So he had to learn some things while he was in the earth.

And isn't that the very thing that that God said to Adam, if

you will obey my my word? And we know here that we see

that Jesus had to learn obedience through obeying His

Father while walking on the earth.

Now look at Luke. Luke lets us know this is Luke 2

and 52. Luke 2 and 52 says this, and

Jesus grew one translation set or kept increasing in wisdom and

stature and in favor with God and man.

So Jesus had to grow in wisdom and stature, which goes back to

the maturing of a man. The stature he had to grow in

this wisdom. We also know in Isaiah, right,

that he the Bible says, and in Luke chapter 4, I believe it is

Luke 4 · chapter mention

that when he opened up the scrolls that he what he found

out who he was. He found out who he was, so he

had to discover who he was as the Son of man as he's walking

and growing and following right and growing and maturing He had.

He was discovering all along as he would open up the scrolls and

read, Oh, the spirit of the Lord is upon me.

And then he said, and now it is fulfilled, you see, that he had

to discover himself, he had to grow in wisdom, he had to grow

in statue, he had to grow in. And that's the thing about it.

When we get born again and we read in second Peter that

everything, all the divine nature is impregnated in you, so

to speak. The seed, the divine seed, His

nature is implanted within your spirit.

Your spirit man has changed. Everything that God has for you

is within you. And what do we have to do?

We have to then discover everything about us and what he,

just like a child. We said that when a child is

born, they have to discover, oh, this is Mama.

Oh, this is Dada. They have to discover

themselves. They don't know when they're

born that they're born into the Glisten family.

They have no idea as an infant that they're born into this

family. They have to discover, they have

to grow. And that's the same thing with

us spiritually as babes in Christ.

Once we born, get born again, everything is within us, but we

have to begin to discover it. Everything about our Father,

everything about the Kingdom, everything about this new family

that we were just birthed into, we have to discover.

Right, and we have to grow and we have to mature and one way

that we will do that is by obedience.

Is it that what we begin to train?

Well, most parents should be doing that today is training

their children how to obey, right?

Not after the 4th time, but the first time.

That's my rule, right? The first time I speak to them,

I want them to obey. And that's the same like our

heavenly Father when he begins to reveal things to us and speak

to us from his word. He wants us to learn obedience

just like Jesus had to learn obedience to the Father.

And you know what it said here in when I read that he became

obedient in some suffering. Do you know, growing and

maturing is always painful. And we talked about this, that

children, when they grow, they have what they call growing

pains, right? So to mature and to grow

spiritually, there's going to be some things that he wants us to

obey him in that we're not going to want to do because it may

hurt us. It may cause us some suffering

to actually have to give something up to be able to press

in and mature and go further in my spiritual growth where he may

be calling you to do, you know, Kingdom Institute.

That is a huge commitment. You know what, when he called us

to go to Rhema, that's a huge commitment.

There was some pain in that. It wasn't easy, right?

We had to give up everything we had to sell everything we had to

leave and go to another state, you know, to be able to submit

ourselves, to be able to grow in what it was he was wanting us to

grow into. And guess if we would not have

done that, where would we be? We would not be seeing all the

fruit of our obedience or our growth in doing and maturing and

AT and and putting down the things that he was asking of us.

So it was in that obeying and in that obedience, even though it

was painful, you know, you grew in that.

You matured in that and that's the same thing that we see that

happened with Jesus. Look at Philippians chapter 2

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

and verse eight. It says being found in the

appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to

the point of death, even the death on the cross.

Obedience is always going to be required for spiritual growth.

Obedience. That is just the bottom line,

obeying what the Word is saying, obeying what God is saying to

you. And when you obey those simple

little things, you begin to start growing.

You begin to start maturing, you begin that growth process.

But how many of us have stunted our growth, right And actually.

What? We become start.

You don't. You don't just stun it and stay

there. There's a term called.

You begin to start backsliding. There is no standing still with

God. Because he's.

Always advancing. It's a constant, perpetual place

of Him wanting to challenge you, to grow you, to get you to

another place. How do I know this?

Because we are to go from faith to faith, glory to glory.

He didn't say just stay right where you at and rest in this

glory. He said there's some new glory

for you if you'll be willing and obedient to walk into it.

There's some more glory. Amen.

Hallelujah. So we see that he expects us to

grow because we see that Jesus himself had to grow in what it

was that God had called him to do as the Son of man in the

earth. Now I want to say this, I have

six points on 6 things you must do for for growth and maturing

in the Kingdom of God. There are six must.

There's many other must, but these are the most important six

things you must do if you're going to grow and begin to start

maturing in the Kingdom of God. I'm going to give you the six

points. I'm not going to go through all

the scriptures tonight, but we're going to lay that out

because we're going to have another Wednesday night.

So the six points are #1 you must be a disciple of the Word

or a student of the Word, which is what disciple actually means.

A true disciple is someone, a student of the Word or a pupil

of the Word, a studier of the Word.

You cannot grow spiritually outside of the Word of God.

You personally, even with coming on Wednesdays and Sundays, if

you do not pick up the word and read it for yourself during the

week, you will not grow properly.

You will become abnormal. Now we talking dysfunctional.

OK, so you must be a person that realizes this is my daily bread

and I must partake of it every day, right?

So that I can continue to grow spiritually and be nourished

properly. OK, so you must be a pupil or a

student or a studier of the word #2 I'm going to give you all six

points. You must sit up underneath the

fivefold ministry. You are not going to grow and

mature the way that God intended for you to grow and mature.

If you are not submitted up underneath A5 fold ministry

gift. It's not going to happen, right?

And all of these gifts are functioning within the church,

within the church. I'm not talking about calling on

profit. So and so that has no church

come on anyway. So we must be people that

realize the need for us to be up underneath and to be submitted

in and up underneath the fivefold ministry functioning

through the church, OK, functioning through not these

fly by the seat of their pants. People that walk in and say I'm

prophetess, so and so goodbye, right?

And they don't even go to a church.

Give me a break. All right, You must be trained

in righteousness. Remember, we're talking about

milk and meat, and we're going to get into the training and

righteousness a little later on. Next week we're going to talk

about training and righteousness, what that

entails, and training in the elementary principles or the

milk of the word. OK, this is coming next week.

But here we see that you must be trained in righteousness.

You will not grow properly if all you are getting is the milk

of the Word. You will remain a baby for the

rest of your life, period. If you are not being challenged

by the word of God. If you are not being convicted

by the word of God, you are in baby state churches where

there's no conviction. That is not a church.

That's infant feeding only. That's not going to step on your

toes. Come on and talk about sin,

period. That's baby stuff.

And we want to get beyond that into some righteousness, OK?

We need to be trained in righteousness.

We must be planted in the House of the Lord.

Those that are planted in the House of the Lord will always be

flourishing and growing always. There will.

Always be growth as long as you are living until he returns.

Those that are planted in the House of the Lord.

Now that's if you are actually being a doer of the word that

you're planted in. OK.

Side note now, OK, then the next one is I believe this is number

5. You must serve and employ your

gift to the body. You will not grow properly if

you're never giving of yourself in service.

You. Become a selfish little child.

Have you ever seen them? They don't want to share their

toys. They don't want nobody sitting

in their seat in the sanctuary. Don't you know I've been sitting

there for 30 years? Come on, they're being selfish.

Share a little bit. Let somebody else sit in your

seat, move around just to have fun.

Let's play musical chairs since you want to act like a child,

right? Come on.

So we're not going to grow properly and mature properly if

we never use our gifts to serve the body of Christ, period.

You're not. You're going to be a selfish

individual that's in it for just you.

You're in it to win it for you. OK, so the next thing we see is

you must have the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord. So these are 6 must that we must

have if we're going to continue to grow spiritually and mature

past childhood and go on into maturity and grow as a child of

God and as the Father wants us to actually grow and we will not

be able to do that outside of the word of God.

So that's what I want to talk about tonight is we must be

students or disciples of the word of God.

Matthew 2819 says, Go therefore and make disciples of all

nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and

the Holy Spirit. And this is where we see that

word disciple, which is student of the Word or a pupil of the

Word. OK, we are here not to just make

converts. Or not.

To just produce infants that are give that have just been given

birth into the Kingdom, we have a responsibility to grow them up

and mature them. All of us, not just the pastors,

all of us have a responsibility to help grow these new infants

up and mature them and help them see, you know, how the Kingdom

life is for them to walk into some things.

You should be in a place that somebody ought to see your life

and look at you and say, well, how did how did you overcome

this with the Word? And you should be able to tell

them, but you're not going to do that if you yourself are not a

student of the Word, if you yourself are not growing

spiritually. OK.

And you know, I looked back in the Old Testament in

Deuteronomy, this is how important it is that we

recognize here in Deuteronomy chapter six, one through 9, he

began to talk to the children of Israel about some things.

Remember this. And he said, these are the

commands, the decrees, and the regulations that the Lord your

God commanded me to teach you. You see that to teach you there

was some things that the children of Israel needed to be

taught. And he goes on to say, you must

obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy.

So if we are going to occupy, which is what the Scripture

tells us to do, occupy until I come, if we are going to occupy

as Kingdom citizens in the earth, all that the land, all

the territory, all the purpose and the plans that God has for

our life, we are going to have to realize that we are pupils.

We need to be taught and we must obey them.

And it says, and you and your what children, it's not just for

you. We have a responsibility that we

are teaching our children even properly how to live in the

Kingdom of God and quit being so such a hypocrite in our own

family's lives and actually live according to the word of God.

And so he says, listen, you, your children and your

grandchildren, I'm in that place now.

I'm teaching my grandchildren how to serve the Lord right.

I'm teaching them the word and great grandchildren, OK, You

must fear the Lord your God. You must fear the Lord your God

as long as you live. There are some Christians that

no longer fear the Lord. He says you're the fear, the

Lord, as long as you live. OK, And we're going to get into

that later on. But if you obey all His decrees

and His commands, you will enjoy a long life.

You see that you'll enjoy a long life.

If you actually obey His decrees, which is His word, His

commandments, His word, you'll live a long life and enjoy it.

Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to what obey.

Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children

in the land, flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the

God of your ancestors, promise you.

Listen, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you

must love the Lord here. Listen.

He's given us all kinds of instructions.

You must love the Lord with all of your heart.

Isn't that in the New Testament too?

And with all your soul and with all your strength.

And listen to what He says. And you must commit yourself

wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.

Repeat them again and again to your children.

Repeat them again and again to your children.

Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the

road and when you're going to bed and when you're getting up.

Tie them to your hands and wear them on your foreheads as

reminders. Write them on the doorpost of

your house and on your gates. So he.

Lets us know there it we should take seriously.

The. Word or the decree or the right,

the commands, which is we know His written word, we should take

it seriously. We should be, as Joshua 18 says,

study this book of instruction continually.

Meditate on it day and night, so that you will be sure to obey

everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and

succeed in all you do. He lets us know.

Listen, we are going to have to be people that meditate on this

word day and night. We are going to have to be

people that quote it coming in and going out, putting it on our

in our house, teaching it to our children, quoting it, talking

about it, confessing, doing all those things.

We're going to have to step up in this arena as believers for

us to continue to grow and mature into what it is that he

needs for us to do outside of the word of God.

We are not going to grow. We're not going to grow, OK, and

we're not going to be able to pass it down.

Because if you don't put importance in the word, your

children sure are not going to put the importance towards the

word. If you put more importance on

their sports, on their education, on all these other

things and you don't remind them, hey, you need to be

getting in the word. Come on, you need to be

meditating in the word day and night.

We have a responsibility, Amen, to not just do it ourselves, but

to be examples to teach our children and our grandchildren,

Amen, Hallelujah. And we know that the reason we

must do this in Romans chapter 12 and two, it says this do not

Romans 12 · chapter mention

be conformed to this world any longer with its superficial

values and customs reading out the amplified, but be

transformed, progressively changed as you mature

spiritually. This is regular amplified.

They have an amplified classic and now they have just

amplified. This is just the regular

amplified, not the classic. But I love the way it said that

as you mature spiritually and it's continual, we don't just,

we're going to see, we don't just mature and say, oh, we've

been in the church 40 years. Guess what?

I'm a mature believer. Not if you haven't obeyed.

Don't be deceived. I don't care how long you've

been sitting in the church. You can have disobedience in

your heart. You can have a fence in your

heart. You can have things that God has

told you to do and you haven't done a one of them.

And you've not matured past those things, period, period.

That's just the bottom line. You cannot negate the word of

God and what He says that we must do to be able to grow.

So as you mature spiritually by the what?

Renewing of your mind, focusing on godly values, ethical

attitudes, so that you would prove yourselves what the will

of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect in

the plan, in His plan and purpose for you and His plan and

His purpose for you. This is something we must do.

We must get into the Word of God.

We must allow the Word of God to renew our mind so that we will

then be able to prove what it is that He needs for us to do, what

His will is for our life, what His plans are for our life, what

His purposes are for our life. And outside of that, we're not

going to grow properly. I mean, I've met Christians now

for 33 years and been in the church and say, I have no idea

what I'm supposed to be doing for the Lord.

You know what that tells me? They have not matured, they have

not grown, They've actually not sought the Lord and been in His

word day and night, because you cannot seek and you cannot not

knock, and you cannot not ask and He don't answer, period.

You can't say that the Scripture doesn't work.

Know. Something you're doing is not

working. God always works when we're in

line with His Word, when we're in alignment with His Word.

And so the Word must be our go to everyday to to continue to.

Grow and. Mature spiritually, because we

read in Hebrews earlier that what let me go to that Scripture

down in verse 12, Hebrews 5 and verse 12, it says, though by

this time you ought to be teachers.

So there was his measuring stick.

You should have been spiritually mature.

You ought to be a teacher of the word by now being able to

reproduce. As a.

Disciple. But what did he say?

It said that you should be teachers, but you have need

again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the

oracles of God, because you have come to need milk again and not

solid food. For.

Everyone who only partakes of milk is not skillful or

accustomed to the word of righteousness and he is an

infant. But solid food is for the

mature. Who because of what practice?

Nobody wants someone sitting on the bench that never practices

that you going to put in the game.

At the. Last minute to try to win that

next whatever touchdown or home run.

And that person has it never, not one time practice, but

they've been faithfully sitting on that bench.

They ain't going to get up there and hit me a home run.

And So what this scripture is letting us know is I don't care

how long you've been sitting in the church or how long you have

actually grown and matured, if you don't continue practicing,

you will lose it. Use it or lose it.

You will lose it. We don't just rest comfortably

and coast on into heaven. We.

Don't we? Don't.

He's always expecting of us in a maturing process.

Until Jesus returns, we should be maturing, we should be

developing, we should be growing, we should be teachable.

We should realize there's still more I can do for the Kingdom of

God. Not retire and sit.

And what happens to most people that retire and sit in front of

the TV all day long? They lose it.

Everything, all mobility, everything, because they're not

using what they have, they're not practicing.

They're not practicing. So we must be people that in our

are in a continual place of practicing, right?

So that we can continue to mature and grow and develop

properly. But look what it says here.

Who, who, because of practice, they have trained their senses

to discern good and evil. I mean, there's so much today in

our society that Christians are involved in and I'm like my, my,

my, I don't even know what they are in what planet they they are

in a milk comatose in that those babies, they just get finished

drinking their milk and they are, what is that called?

A milk, what milk coma? There's other things I think

they've called it. But anyway, milk drunk, that's

it. That's what I'm talking about.

They are milk drunk and that's what they're acting like.

They're. Intoxicated by all the garbage

and the things that are happening, and they cannot even

discern good and evil. What's good and what's evil?

That's a baby, that's an infant, that's someone who has not

matured in the word of God to realize there's some righteous

living. They're drunk on the milk and

they're going to remain in baby and infant stage.

And you know those you don't ever want to see children not

grow properly and are abnormal and still have to wear diapers

at 20 years old and you've seen them.

It's a sad state, but just think of that spiritually.

They're. Deformed.

It's. Abnormal.

And it's not right. And that is not how our Heavenly

Father raises and grows and produces His citizens.

It's not. It's not.

So here we see that we can see the difference between and.

We said this. The word right will always

process formula milk. It processes the milk formula,

but then it will also give you solid meat, right?

You're going to be, the word is going to be milk for you for a

season, but then there's going to be some meat that's going to

start jumping off the page that he knows in that time that you

have need of it and you're able to bear it, he said.

I'm not going to give you anything that you cannot bear

because he actually knows where you are spiritually and what you

need to get you to the next place of growth.

Because he knows when you need the milk, but he knows when

you're ready to start chewing on some solid food.

And it's not going to be too hard for you to bear because

he's measuring you. He knows your measurements, he

knows where you're at, he knows you're ready to start partaking

of some meat. So he'll start putting those

little Nuggets of meat out there.

Those little chicken Nuggets. All babies love chicken Nuggets,

right? Starts putting out them little

Nuggets for you. Start.

Chewing on for you to start growing and maturing.

OK, so the word is, is great by the Holy Spirit being able to

bring that illumination and that revelation of the milk and the

word or the meat for you. Now we said last week, what was

milk? Milk is fundamentals.

Milk is what we see Hebrews calls elementary principles.

OK, it's elementary. It's it's foundational.

It's, you know, it is the beginnings or the basics of

every baby's life, right? And we're talking about

spiritually as well, all the fundamentals that babies need to

get. And do, you know, when we see

many babes get born again, if they do not remain in the

church, they will crumble and they do not form, right?

They don't have a solid foundation, right?

Especially ones that go from this church and that church and

this church and that church and that church.

And they never get submitted or what we call and like to call

planted because that tree we know or that plant cannot

produce or grow properly if it's kid continuing to be plucked up

and put into other places of soil.

But our. Heavenly Father, that's why He

says He places us in the body where it pleases Him.

He knows exactly what we need as His children and where we need

to be in the body of Christ so that we get fed a well balanced

meal. Amen.

And so you see it all the time and you see these people that

never even go to a church but say they're Christians, watch

their little television programs, have their little

Bible studies, do all these things, they will not grow

properly. It's not how.

God designed it. I don't care what they say to

you. I don't care it's not what

Scripture says. You're not going to grow and

mature properly the way that God intended for His children to

grow outside of being planted in the House of the Lord, because

every child has a family that they belong to.

He does not have orphans, he said.

He would actually never leave us as an orphan.

So we. All have a family of God that we

belong to and it's a necessary if we are going to grow properly

and be fed what we need to be planted in the House of the Lord

so that we're not being uprooted all the time and never get to

get firm roots in the ground. Firm roots in the ground for a

solid foundation. So we see here, let me tell you

what the definition of. Solid.

Meat was in the Greek, OK. It meant strong, stable, firm.

So when you start eating the meat, this is what ought to be

producing. Isn't that something?

When you eat meat, you're supposed to get stronger, right?

It's supposed to have everything in it for your bones and all

these things for you to develop properly.

You know, and again, we have to realize that the meat of the

word is there for us to become stable, to be stable.

How many Christians do we see that are not stable?

They're not stable. They're not stable people, OK.

And so again, solid meat is strong, firm nourishment and

brings stability to your life. What is the meat?

Hever equates the meat to righteousness, right?

Let me tell you what righteousness is.

We know that we have been made right through Christ.

OK, That's in our spirit. But then he tells us in the

Scripture that we are to produce fruits of righteousness.

So we ought to be able to see the fruit of the righteousness

that God has done on the inside of you in your spirit if we've

been made right with Christ. OK, then what does that mean?

We ought to start seeing some fruits of righteousness in our

life. Some.

Fruits of righteousness developed within our life and

righteousness means the state of him who is as ought to be the

state of you. You are righteous, right, The

righteousness of God in Christ. It means the condition has been

acceptable to God. The doctrine concerning the way

in which man is to attain rightness with God, say

rightness with God, but not only in rightness with God, it also

begins to tell you about correctness of your thinking.

So lots of Christians run around, oh, I'm, I'm the

righteousness of God in Christ, yet we don't see any fruit being

produced that looks like righteousness in their life.

And a lot of times it's because why they've not renewed their

mind to the righteousness that they are in Christ, which is why

we must be people that renew our mind to the word of God, Amen.

Because it's our mind. Was it Galatians that said we

must be take the sincere milk of the word or the engrafted Word

of God to save our soul? Is that in Galatians?

I believe it is. We are to take the engrafted

Word of God which is able to save our soul.

And we know here that our soul is what our mind, our will and

our emotions. Our spirit is born again.

It's right. The minute you get born again,

you are the righteousness of God in Christ, right?

But we have to get our mind renewed to the Word of God,

which is our mind, our reasoning, our intellect, our

will, and our emotions. We have to get our mind renewed

or saved, the saving of the soul realm.

We have to do this. God did this.

But it's our responsibility to get our head right, get our

thinking right, to get our thinking and our beliefs in

alignment with His word of righteousness.

You see that? And then once we get our mind in

alignment with His Word and our spirit is alive unto Christ and

already righteous, then we'll be able to tell this flesh, you

don't own me. These passions, these desires,

these carnal things, these fleshly things that does not own

me because my spirit and my or my spirit and my soul are two

against one. But how many Christians we know

that say they're born again, but they let their flesh dominate

them? That means they're sleeping

around. They still want to feel good.

They think it's all right. They want to go partying, doing

all those sensual things, all those things that the word of

God says we ought not be doing. Because that's.

Righteous living. You see what I'm?

Saying. So.

You can tell when somebody is still tapping into some carnal

living or baby things is when we don't see the righteousness or

the fruit of it being produced within their life because

they're still allowing some other realms to dominate them.

OK. So here righteousness has to do

with correctness of thinking, feeling and acting.

You see that? So if we think right, our

spirits already right, then our acting is going to get into

alignment with our our thinking and our spirit.

You see that? So righteousness is not just

about Oh, I'm the righteousness of God in Christ.

He wants our mind and alignment and right we wants us thinking

right. He doesn't want us thinking I'll

against our neighbor. He doesn't want us thinking bad

thoughts or lusting or whatever the case.

He doesn't want us thinking that way.

He wants our mind thinking right and in a righteous position, a

holy position. See that and then our bodies

will get into alignment. It it says it's food.

Righteousness is food for the mind and instruction or the

faculty of the mind for perceiving, understanding and

judging. Do you see that?

And judging, as we said, they were not able to discern or

judge properly between good and evil.

You know what? I'm a believer.

I ought to be fleeing the appearance of that.

I am not going to be called alone with a man with his shirt

off in his workplace in the office.

I can properly discern I ought to be fleeing the appearance of

evil. You see what I'm saying?

Because I've trained myself in righteous living, I've gotten my

mind renewed to the Word of God and what He says is right and

what He says is wrong. What He says is good and what He

says is evil. And I don't let the world tell

me what is good is evil and what is evil is good.

Because I've matured and can read the word for myself and see

this don't align with scripture. So I'm going to deserve properly

here to be in a position of righteousness because I'm

maturing and I'm growing and realizing I got to cut that

thing off or I got to cut that thing out because it's only

leading me to death and destruction.

And He's come to give me life and life more abundant.

So I'm not going to partake of those things.

That's going to lead me down a path of destruction because now

I can properly discern, because I've practiced righteousness.

I've allowed the Word of God to be put within me, and I've

aligned it myself by obeying it. So whatever He says is good.

That's what I obey, and that's what I do.

Whatever He says is evil. That's what I shun, hate,

actually, and abhor. The Scripture says abhor it.

It's evil, so I don't put myself in a position to be around it at

all because I'm properly discerning, because I've

actually trained my senses, I've actually practiced the word of

God and practice righteousness by renewing my mind and getting

myself in alignment of right living.

This is righteousness. Amen.

This is the meat of the word. This is solid food.

When you begin to start recognizing this is right and

this is wrong, isn't that what you teach your children?

You should be? This is right and this is wrong.

It's that simple. And we're going to obey what is

right and we're going to not obey the things that are wrong.

And we're teaching our children it's not good for you to

disobey. Isn't that what we are to teach

our children? Don't disobey me.

When I tell you this is what I want you to do, I expect you to

do it. Why are you disobeying me?

Do you think the Father's any different?

He says we being evil, know how to give good gifts to our

children. How much more our Heavenly

Father who gives of us His Spirit.

He's a he's a better father than any of us.

And he knows what our what our children need.

He knows what his children need. He knows what we need.

Amen. Hallelujah.

Are you getting it? Hallelujah.

So we want to be people that have practiced and trained

ourselves in the Word of God, trained our senses so that we

will discern good and evil. Now look at this last point,

'cause we're running out of time.

I look up here where it says that people have become in verse

11, it says concerning Him, we have much to say, but it's hard

to explain because it's hard to explain since you have become

dull of hearing, dull of hearing.

So again, it doesn't matter how long we are sitting in church,

we're hearing the word. We can become dull of hearing.

I mean, we've even said that to our children.

I mean, do you not hear me? You know, to where you as a

parent's talking And it just sounds like what my husband

said. Charlie Brown won't, won't,

won't, won't, won't, won't. They just are checked out as if

they are not even hearing a word you're saying and there's no

response. It's not allowed.

Don't let my children or I didn't let my children not

respond to me when I was speaking to them.

If I'm. Speaking to you, there's going

to be a response. You're not going to act like you

don't hear me and check out because I know you hear me.

Have you ever said I know you heard me?

I know you hear me, but they're acting like they've become dull

of hearing. Well, we as adults.

Or as. Those that are growing and

sitting, we can become dull of hearing, of hearing the word,

which we shouldn't be because faith comes from hearing and

hearing from the word of God, right?

Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God.

We ought to always have, and we say this in our preschool, a

listening ear. We're telling our preschoolers

that have listening ears, we should have listening ears at

all times. That means when the word of God

is being spoken in any form, if you're reading it, if you're

hearing it, whatever, you should be in a place of saying speak to

me. So because I want to hear you.

I don't want to become dull of hearing because if you become

dull of hearing, he lets us know the consequence of that.

You're going to need to go back to some milk of the word again

because you actually are not hearing anymore.

You've become dull of hearing. And one way you know that you

are dull of hearing is when you are not doing what you know to

do, when you're not doing what you know to do.

And that what I said to my kid, I know you heard me.

You know what I said you needed to do?

Go do it right? So again, we have to position

ourselves if we're going to continue to grow and mature, to

be those that have listening ears and checking ourselves.

Have I become dull of hearing what the Spirit is saying, what

the Word of God is speaking to me about?

Have I checked out and am I not doing what I know I should be

doing in the Word? Because that's going to hinder

us progressing and moving forward in our spiritual growth

with the Lord actually not growing.

Their dull of hearing means sluggish.

Have you become sluggish? You're.

Sluggish. You're barely wanting to read

your word, you're barely want to come to church, you're barely

wanting to do anything and serve and all this stuff.

Have you become sluggish? Have you become lazy?

This is what that word means. Dull of hearing, sluggish, lazy,

stupid. Not me, the Greek.

This is what it said. Dull and slothful.

So slothful means you're not actually wanting to, you know,

treasure or value what pastor said, you know, said Sunday or

was it last Wednesday? You're not wanting to treasure

or value the words that you're hearing, and you've become

slothful in it. OK.

And so again, we have to ask ourselves because we don't want

to fall into the trap to have to need milk again for those.

Everybody's in a different place and that's what's so great about

our Heavenly Father. He knows every one of our

children and where we're at. That's why He has his measuring

stick. He knows where we're all at

spiritually and what we all need.

And it that how it is with our children.

I had three children. I knew wherever I knew their

personalities, I knew how they would respond.

I knew how I knew. You know how this temperament

was according to that temperament.

All of those things. And the Heavenly Father, he

knows all of that about each and every one of his children.

If he says I know every hair on their head, then He knows

everything about us, where we're at spiritually and what we need.

What we? Need.

He knows if we're still still needing a little bit of milk

with, you know, a little bit of meat.

He still knows, if you know what, they still just need some

milk. They need milk, they need milk,

they need milk, they need meat. Because every time I'm speaking

forth, they're obeying. Every time I'm speaking forth,

dare doing, every time a challenge comes, they're lining

themselves up with the word of God.

They're producing the fruit of righteousness.

They're practicing this thing. They've trained their senses to

this thing. So you know what, right now

there's people receiving meat from what I'm saying, even

though it's the same message. And right now there's people

receiving milk even though it's the same word.

Because our Heavenly Father knows where each and every one

of us are at spiritually and how to feed us what we need from the

same meal, what we need from the same meal.

You know, every one of your children eat differently,

meaning some may eat the whole entire plate and some may pick a

little bit and a little bite and that's about it.

But He knows how to feed us and what we need to be able to grow

properly and mature and be in the place that God needs us to

be in our growth and our development along our journey in

this walk in Christ. Amen.

He knows where we all need to be and where we should be.

He knows where we are lacking. He is just like He said.

He is judging and weighing and measuring exactly where we are

at. And we need to recognize that so

that we don't just sit back and think we're cool and we're just

coasting along and everything's good.

Is it? Are we overcoming in life?

Are we producing the fruits of righteousness?

Are we doing what the Word says to do?

We have to evaluate ourselves according to the Word of God,

not what other people in other churches are doing and not what

this person is doing or that person is doing, but what does

His Word say we should be doing? And that's what I measure my

life to, period. I don't compare it to what this

people are doing or what they're doing.

I'm measuring my life according to the Word of God.

I am going to stand before a holy God.

He is going to judge me and me alone by myself, not with my

husband, not with my children. He's going to be judging me.

He's going to be looking at me. He's going to be asking me, did

you do the things that I said for you to do according to the

Word of God? Amen.

I don't care what that church is doing.

I don't care what this pastor's doing.

But what I'm going to do is I'm going to discern for myself by

the Word of God how to navigate what righteousness is, what

holiness is, what His Word says I should be looking like as a

child of God, and is that being produced in my life?

Amen. Hallelujah, Let's pray.

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