Depths

Julie and I used to live in Dallas. For one of her twenty-something birthday’s we went to a seafood restaurant.  I must have gotten food poison from what I ate.  I was at work the next morning when my neck felt hot, my head was swimming and I felt a lump of something creeping up my throat.  I left work and started driving home.  I got sick, if you know what I mean (hurled), 3 times before I made it home.  At the beginning of December this year, we took our family to December to a Christmas Parade.  We drove by that seafood place and I felt that same feeling all over again and it has been at least 13 years since that event. 

The point is, I would never go back to that restaurant because it made me sick.  Too bad the same isn’t true for sin.  How many times do I return to sin in which I know will leave me feeling defeated and distant from the Lord?  I was reading 1 John 2 this morning and some how ended up in Hebrews 6:1. “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God..” (NewAmerican Standard Bible)  What are the elementary teachings of Christ?  My study bible points out these elementary teaching as ”importance of faith, the foolishness of trying to be saved by good deeds, the meaning of baptism and spiritual gifts and the facts of the resurrection and of eternal life.”  That is a lot of basics.  So where is a maturing believer supposed to go?  The maturity comes from “walking as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:6).  It is knowing the elementary truths then following up on them by leading others to do the same.  The trap is not moving beyond the talk. 

How have you been over the break?  For me it seems like anytime there is a break in normal schedule I get tested in laziness or taking too much of break. Hmmm, am I all alone?