By now you should be teachers. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the first things you need to know from God’s Word. You still need milk instead of solid food. Anyone who lives on milk cannot understand the teaching about being right with God. He is a baby. Solid food is for full-grown men. They have learned to use their minds to tell the difference between good and bad. — Hebrews 5:12-14

I love going on trips. Sometimes I don’t always enjoy driving those trips. At 60 miles per hour, you can knock out a mile a minute. However, when traffic hits, sometimes it takes quite a while to go one mile. I always seem to have an expectation in my mind of where I should be after a certain amount of time.

When it comes to following Jesus, there should be some mile markers in our lives. After we come to faith in Him, it is vital that we grow in Him. If we have a 500 mile trip to take,it would be hard to not be aggravated if three hours into the trip, we had only traveled 10 or so miles. Likewise, a year or two after receiving Christ, there should be a difference in where you were when you received Him, and where you are now.

I remember having supposedly been a Christian for 5 years. I didn’t read my Bible, didn’t make any effort to live my life for Jesus, and therefore looked no different than a non-believer. Well, I decided after a super powerful church service that I’d tell my friend about the Lord. He laughed and told me I didn’t get to tell him about Jesus. He pointed out that I cussed the same as him, partied the same as him, and slept around the same as him. He told me not to act like Christ made a real difference in my life.

I use this mile marker in my life a lot when evangelizing. You see, after five years of having a supposed faith in Jesus, I was still at the starting line. Keeping my analogy going, several hours into my trip, I hadn’t traveled the first mile. I knew in that moment that I had to finally move forward in my walk with the Lord.

I say all that to say this, if there has been no change since you’ve come to Christ, you should be frustrated. If you have no hatred for sin and no desire to put simple things behind you like a foul mouth, lying, and sexual immorality, you need to wonder why. If you have no desire for the things of God, like joining a fellowship of believers and reading the Bible for personal growth and change, why even claim to be a Christian? Don’t you want to be different than the world? Many believers have a long trip ahead of them, and are still in the driveway.

I’m just seeing a lot of “believers” expect an awful lot from God, but not giving Him anything. Many are questioning His goodness. One guy I know was railing against how God hadn’t done anything for him. I asked him about his relationship with the Bible. This guy said he “knew it like the back of his hand.” I asked him if he knew how many books were in the Bible . . . he didn’t know.

I don’t know what is going on right now in the world. But it sure seems to either be going downhill fast, or it is falling off of a cliff. The Bible says there are two roads, one is wide and leads to destruction. The overwhelming majority of people are traveling that road. Then there is a narrow road that leads to life. Very few people choose to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Christ. Lots of people say they are traveling that path. If they are, they don’t seem to have traveled very far on it.

Lord, I sure hope this doesn’t come across as judgmental. I have been the epitome of what I’m talking about. I’m so thankful for my college friend who let me know that I hadn’t left the garage. To this day, I feel like my walk with You began after that conversation. Help people who say they are Christians walk this stuff out. There is a lost and dying world that really needs to see what this looks like. Amen.