SPIRITUAL MENTAL PREPARATION (PART 7)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.

1 Peter 2:2-3 NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Seven is known in biblical numerology circles as representing fullness and/or completeness and so it’s totally appropriate that today’s message, the seventh of this series on Spiritual Mental Preparation, is the final devotion before we move onto other subjects in 1 Peter. Through this past week, we have looked at the importance of advance spiritual preparation every Christian should engage in before doing anything while representing the Lord. Look at these words from the second chapter of this letter, written by Peter to the “chosen people” of God who were “living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1:1 NLT):

Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness (2:2-3 NLT).

As we consider newborn children, they don’t know much but are instinctively aware that they need to be fed and will cry out for that when they want it. They have a deep craving that can only be fulfilled by someone else that they depend on for the “nourishment” that sustains their health.

Since every single person can relate to babies fresh out of their mother’s womb, this is a great and effective analogy for Peter to use as he addresses his brothers and sisters in Christ, to include us here in the 21st century.

The call here is for every single Jesus believer to have a deep longing and desire for “pure spiritual milk”, the pure spiritual milk that allows them to “grow into a full experience of salvation”. In other words, Christians are to have an insatiable appetite for the Word of our Lord and the leading of the Holy Spirit in their lives, the Word and Spirit that feeds and fosters proper spiritual growth and ensures a person’s actions, words, and thoughts are done in a way that is pleasing in God’s sight.

Once one believes and trusts in Jesus as Savior, they automatically gain the guarantee of salvation and the blessed eternal life associated with it. This “taste of the Lord’s kindness” is to be the driving force that compels the believer to continue seeking His sustenance so to remain spiritually healthy, just like the newborn baby becomes healthy from the milk they are fed, whether by breast or bottle.

A proper Christian lifestyle, the one the Lord expects, can only be achieved when a person intentionally exercises spiritual mental preparation before carrying out anything in the Lord’s sight. My prayer is that this series has equipped you to just that.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.