Welcome back to all of our listeners! I’m BJ Sipe, and you’re listening to the Set Your Mind Above podcast – where everyday ordinary events teach us extraordinary eternal truths. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today, I am excited to share my life and my faith with you, and I sure hope that you’ll do the same with me along the way. 

Three years ago today, my life was changed forever. Three years ago today, the world suddenly became much bigger and brighter than I could have ever possibly imagined. Three years ago today, I felt for the first time an entirely different kind of love than I had ever known. That is because three years ago today, my daughter Ava was born. I remember her birth as clearly as though it happened yesterday. My wife had a long hard labor all through the night with our precious little girl. I remember looking at her face for the first time and hearing her first cry as they laid her on top of my wife. Tears filled both of our eyes as our hearts exploded with joy and gratitude towards God for blessing us with a daughter, our firstborn. The nurses brought her over to be cleaned, and I remember standing there between my wife and between my daughter holding both of their hands. Last night I held both of their hands again as we prayed, and tears once again filled my eyes as I thanked God for giving us these past three years with Ava. It’s amazing how much she has changed over the past three years already, but one thing remains the same: she has brought more joy and more love to our home and our hearts than she could ever possibly imagine. We have already done a few things today to celebrate: mommy made her a special breakfast, she got to go out for lunch with the whole family (daddy included), and she was able to go pick out new paints to color with at Hobby Lobby after lunch. We will also have a small little party on Saturday as well, so I guess you can just say she’s going to get to have an entire birthday weekend. I’m sure there will be many cute and fun stories to tell over the next few days, but I’ve got to tell you about something sweet that happened last night as we were putting her to bed. We had just said our prayers and were laying there on each side of her on her bed cuddling. “Can you just stay our little girl forever?” Kylie asked while stroking her hair. Ava’s face sank just a little and she murmured, “I’m sorry momma.” “Oh no baby, you don’t need to be sorry!” Kylie laughed, “Why are you sorry?” Ava looked at both of us and said confidently, “Because I just wanna grow up!” We both laughed and hugged her tight, I guess mommy and daddy will just have to cherish every moment because she’s growing up so fast whether we like it or not. Isn’t it funny how that works? When you are a kid, you spend most of your time wishing that you were older saying that you can’t wait to grow up. Yet, once you become an adult and are all grown, you spend a lot of your time reminiscing on the simpler days when you were just a kid. I truly believe there is blessing to every part of life that we must learn to love and enjoy. But what Ava said was right – she needs to grow up, it’s just a part of life. You can’t stay young forever, and a part of that is growing up. Her body needs to grow, her vocabulary, her comprehension, her abilities. In fact, as much as we tease about her staying little forever, if she suddenly stopped growing or stopped showing signs of growth, Kylie and I would become deeply concerned about what was wrong. As it is, we are very thankful for two healthy, happy children that are growing quickly and strong just as we’d hoped and prayed they would. 

I want you to ask yourself this question today: are you showing the same level of spiritual growth as you are in other areas of your life? Just as growth is a natural process that takes place with our children, so it should be with the children of God. Let’s consider a few passages of Scripture and make some application for ourselves today. The first comes from 1 Peter 2:1-3, “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Earlier I mentioned that growth is a natural part of our life, but even with that we assume a few things. In order to grow and remain healthy & strong, it takes a proper diet. If you do not eat, you cannot grow. Not only do you need to eat, but you need to eat the right things – you will not grow healthy if you eat constantly but what you’re eating a lot of is donuts. Spiritual growth should be a natural part of our life, but that is not possible without a proper diet as well. We should constantly be feeding on God’s word, longing for it like a newborn child cries out for milk day in and day out. If your regular routine does not include daily time in God’s word, you will never grow in your faith or grow to become the man or woman of God that you should be. Not only this, but we cannot simply feast on the same thing. Certainly we all have our favorite books of the Bible to read or study, one of those for me is the book of Proverbs. However, I will not grow as I should if all I do is spend time in that book alone. We must consider the whole counsel of God, spending time in prayer and study of every book both in the Old and New Testament. Pop quiz: when is the last time you spent reading through the book of Leviticus? Or how about Nahum? Or any of the minor prophets for that matter? If we want to grow, we’ve got to eat. I want us to read another passage of Scripture as well, let’s consider Hebrews 5:11-6:3, “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.” You cannot stay spiritually immature forever, we all need to grow up. While we know that conceptually, I think sometimes that is hard to accurately measure in our lives. Am I growing up like I should? Or am I still stuck in the same place? In this instance, these were a group of Christians that had been faithful for long enough that they should have been able to teach others themselves. However, they were nowhere near that point like they should have been. Where they should have been 30, they were still 3 so to speak. I know that not everyone ought to be teachers, but maybe this is a good standard of measurement we ought to use for ourselves: am I still doing the same things I was 5 years ago? How about 10 years ago? If we are growing like we should in Christ, the me of years past should look drastically different than the me of today. Through maturity, we grow into different acts of service, different levels of teaching or leadership, and are willing to take on more responsibility. If nothing has changed, that’s perhaps a sign that maybe you’re not growing like you should be. It’s time to move forward, it’s time to press on to maturity, and it’s time to grow up. 

Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Tune in, Tuesday-Fridays, as a new podcast episode will be uploaded each day. Also, be sure to follow the Facebook page for the Set Your Mind Above podcast for future announcements and video sessions that are uploaded on Saturdays. As you have the opportunity, share these thoughts with your friends and family, and share with me what important lessons you are learning from every day, ordinary events. Until next time know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.