Are we content to remain as infant Christians? It appears that many in the body of Christ today suffer from spiritual retardation. In his book, “For God’s Sake Grow Up”, David Ravenhill calls the Church to a greater degree of spiritual maturity. He opens the book with a story of a couple who give birth to their first child only to discover to their horror that he suffers from a medical condition that does not allow him to grow or physically mature at all. You can imagine the parents’ dismay and grief, and I am sure we can imagine God’s dismay and grief when he looks down at his children who are content to flounder in the infant stages of Christianity. Grow up!

We cannot remain as children forever. When we see a new person come to Christ, they are an infant in the faith. Like an infant we expect that they will require a lot of time and attention. They need to be fed and cared for, but we expect little from them. They must be nurtured and we don’t expect anything in return. Just like the physical birth of a child, this is a wonderful thing. However, imagine the problems that would be caused if 20 years later a baby had not grown at all and still required the same resources and care from its parents. Imagine how draining it would be if they never grew up and cared for others. This is the picture that David Ravenhill paints of many people in the body of Christ today. 20 years or more after being saved they are still seeking out their own needs rather than giving their lives to the Church. They are alive, they are saved, but they are severely disabled in their ability to minister.

I like the way that David Ravenhill does not get tangled up in specific theological questions in his book. Rather he addresses the practical state of affairs and shares God’s vision for our lives. Like his father, David emphasizes a need for prayer in the individual’s life. Without prayer we will never receive vision from the father. One point that God really used to speak to me was the idea that intimacy is a prerequisite for conception. In the physical, a couple must be intimate before they can conceive and finally give birth. In the same way, we must be intimate with God before he can conceive ministry in our lives.

This book stands apart from the crowd of popular Christian books because it calls us to get over our issues and start to help other people. When I walk into the Christian bookstore I am often dismayed to see shelf upon shelf of self-help books. As my pastor often says “either fish or cut bait.” If we are going to live the Christian life, we must get over ourselves and start caring for others; on the other hand, if we are still going to mess around in our little areas of sin or insecurities, we should just get out of the boat. You can’t sit there in the middle forever.