Get off the Milk
Rebellion: the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention.
Sounds like something that only selfish teenagers do as a result of their immaturity and lack of respect for authority.
But I wonder if rebellion is really embraced by many adults would consider themselves mature and respectful.
I’m talking about the “grown ups” who have made a choice, at some point in time, to resist authority…truth…discipline…not because they deliberately want to do something wrong, but because they reason choices through their mind, so they now decide what is right and wrong and choose what is more comfortable or familiar or satisfying in their own judgement.
These don’t even have to be big things. It could be things like one’s attitude, or their words or their reactions to undesirable situations. It can be one’s excuses and justifications, and even one’s pride.
And although they experience consequences, they reason through those consequences and still justify their actions thus continuing to repeat their choices over and over until it’s part of their every day routine.
In other words, the rebellion has become intentional, and not due to a lack of knowledge, but actually due to a lack of caring about what God wants over what they want. It is a severing of the conscious, if you will.
This type of rebellion, while it can be blatant, most of the time starts small and grows bigger. And that’s because there’s no real maturity in the Faith. These so-called “grown ups” are really just oversized children who refuse the full meal of the gospel of Jesus Christ and instead prefer the warm milk that soothes their fussiness
Hebrews 5:11-14 puts it this way: “There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. 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. 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.”
The book of lamentations addresses such a topic as this. christians, who refused to mature, bring about great sorrow to the kingdom of God. Jeremiah wrote about his profound grief over the destruction of Jerusalem and the suffering of its people because of their rebellion against God.
God’s people repeated offenses against Him. And even in the midst of repercussions for their actions, God continued to extend His hand of love and mercy, and even restoration for those who repent and turned back to Him.
If we were to be honest, rebellion is much closer than we’d like to admit. Perhaps it’s time to realize that destruction and suffering comes to those who choose that path.
However, for those who choose Godly obedience and submission, there is mercy, compassion, and hope. There is truly a freedom of surrendering to the way God wants us to do things instead of doing it the way we want to.
Lamentations 3:22-28 Puts it this way, “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline: Let them sit alone in silence beneath the Lord’s demands.”
May our dependence upon the Lord be our foundation of understanding, and our surrender be the framework in which He can transform us. Let us find joy in His demands so that we may receive our inheritance in Him!
-Kristin-