Do you see your faith as a journey? Has following me ever given you a sense of dislocation from the comfortable and familiar? You may find this disturbing and think that you are out of my will, but there is a Biblical precedent for this as a necessary step in your spiritual development. When I called Abraham it was to move away from familiar surroundings. Jacob and David fled for their lives after I called them, and Joseph was taken away against his will. You can be too comfortable where you are. Don’t be in distress when I call you to move on from your routine, but expect it as a normal part of my pattern for your spiritual growth. 

Do you know anyone who responded to the gospel message on their first exposure to it? This can happen, but it is rare. Most people aren’t prepared to make a total life commitment to something the first time they encounter it. Were you? My word makes provision for this in saying that one plants and another waters but God gives the increase. Learn from this simple illustration with plants. Discern the spiritual state of those you encounter and meet them where they are to advance my redemptive work in their lives. Blessed are those who are equipped to minister at every level of spiritual growth. 

Not everyone has the same amount of money, but everyone has the same amount of time. In the long run this is more important and a great measure of human equality. Yet even as some people spend their money wisely and some spend it foolishly whether they have little or much, so you can spend your allotment of time wisely or foolishly. Do you think of unproductive effort as wasting time? Another perspective on the same issue is not to give your heart to things of no value. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also and there will you spend the time you have. If you guard your heart and only give it to things of true and enduring value, then you will spend your time wisely and well. 

My word contrasts milk and meat as sources of nourishment. Milk is for babies and children, and meat is for those who are grown. What is the spiritual meaning of this distinction? Milk is food eaten by others for you. New Christians get their instruction from others so that they may learn the established doctrines of the faith. This is entirely proper and necessary and fits the natural parallel of milk for children. But the essence of the Christian faith is a relationship with me and I want you to move on to the point that you can relate to and hear from me yourself in addition to what you hear from me through others.