1213, Thank you for your post. It is about loving our brothers and sisters I agree. Jesus Christ our Lord produces that love inside of us by his working on our hearts.
Bling so there what are the differences between babes in Christ, and Sons and daughters of God exactly? What does it mean to you starting out as a babe in Christ?
So the discipline is a loving discipline, that is good to know, brother bling.
Babes in Christ are sons and daughter, but babes need to grow. Babes are in experienced Christians.
My single one day awakening happened this way:
For many years, I experienced and believed Christianity had no real down side. It was a happy, easy and rewarding life, everyone should jump at.
I use to teach “we (Christians) all sin lots of times and cannot keep from it, but we are constantly being washed by the blood of Christ, so we are without sin in that case.” That was before I met a group of Christians that risked death for themselves and others by sinning, just any sign of not doing what Christ would be doing in that moment. Here is what happened:
I got thrown into (volunteering if needed) with the youth (13-21 age) prisoners program teaching Bible (one hour on Sunday morning to a group of 14 with three other Christians teaching groups of 14) and I was teaching three groups of “Christians”. The first group were guys (going to school it is called) that start out causing trouble and getting thrown in the tank. Then they start increasingly attending the Bible services, carrying their Bible, being nice, eventually being baptized and saying they are Christian. By the time the parole board meets they have this glowing report showing continued improvement tied to their increased spirituality and are released and they were fun to teach. These guys still carry weapons, are members of a gang, and every prisoner knows they just “went to school” to get out. The second group were converted before they went to prison (grandma conversions), but on the first day they are watching raunchy TV, hanging with a loss group, laughing at off colored jokes, were not always talking about Jesus and were not trying to convert others. Their first day in prison the snitches see this, the snitches talk to the Bulls that approach these “Christians” saying you are not a Christian (doing everything Christ would do) and make them a slave (often sexual) or at best a gang member. They still come to Bible study on Sunday, good students, so they can tell Granny (who visits them Sunday afternoon) what they learned, but they are slaves (sometimes sexually) to some bull. The third group is fanatical, they stick close to each other, they: study, pray, witness to everyone, and avoid even a hint of insincerity that the snitches could see. They carry no weapons, but step between those that are being beaten especially persecuted. This group had grown over the last 3 years from just a couple of guys to now 42, but it came at a high price. Each convert had on the day he was baptized given up the protection of his gang membership, turned over his weapons along with all his possessions (the gang owns everything including them), they were beaten if not by the gang they left, then by other gangs looking for payback and then they were watched constantly looking for any sign the snitches might interpret as weakness (anything less than what Christ would do in the situation, would result in a beating and it could be to death). There is absolutely no privacy and these Christians never wanted to be found alone. They slept in barracks where at least one stayed awake all night praying over the others, so they could sleep without the fear of being smashed in the head in the middle of the night. These guys believed and counted on power from the Holy Spirit, I did not know existed. They come battered and bruised each week hungry for some real meaningful Christ like lesson that goes beyond their group study of 40+hours that week on the same subject, which I could not provide. They mostly helped me with my poor example of Christianity and lack of knowledge and lack of wisdom. They mentored me even though they were only Christian for a few months, but I was a poor disciple and could not keep up with them.
My first time teaching this class, a non-Christian at the end of my shameful lesson asked me a question I could not answer and a young new convert jumped in and answered for me but first said: “Don’t bother him, he is a newbie” (yet I had been a Christian for 10 years and he had been a Christian less then a year, yet he was right and I was the babe.
