August 11 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

When the author of Hebrews was about to begin an explanation of the priesthood of Christ, he suddenly doubted if his audience was ready for the subject. Certainly they should have been ready: "You ought to be teachers." But they still needed milk, the food of babies, instead of the solid foods mature people eat.

No one will enter the kingdom of God without a childlike faith. But that does not mean God wants us to be childish. All people must be born again, or they will never see the kingdom of God. But that does not mean God wants us to remain spiritual babies.

Too often, education in the Christian church is almost entirely confined to children. Many full-grown people who have developed their intellectual abilities to a high degree have an understanding of the Scriptures on the level of a ten-year-old. They ought to be teachers but they live on a spiritual diet of milk.

Christian education is the need of the hour! The weird sects that have mushroomed all over the world would not have had a chance if ordinary Christian people had known their doctrines. Nearly every new sect is the revival of an old sin.

Of course, none of us ever outgrows the ABCs of salvation. We can never discard the basics, but we have to work with them and build on them. Unless we go deeper and higher, we stand in danger of losing even what little we have.

Education must be taken seriously by the church at large and by each member individually. A weak faith may be caused by any one of a number of factors. Flirting with sin, neglecting prayer, keeping the wrong company, and similar things are well-known causes of feeble faith. But all experienced and godly pastors will agree that the main cause of weak faith is ignorance.

REFLECTIONS

What might you consider doing to increase your knowledge of God and his Word?

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published by Paideia Press in 1977. This updated edition is copyright 2009 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. You can order a copy of this revised version of the book directly from the publisher.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this updated edition of Daylight are from the Holy Bible: Today's New International Version copyright 2001, 2005 by the International Bible Society.