This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.” (1 John 3:11) Let’s do it now. Christ-followers let’s train to love better every time we gather. It’s not enough just to hear more sermons about love, we need hands-on training in love, not just talks. Let’s train to cultivate and demonstrate more of the fruit of God’s Spirit everywhere we go. (Galatians 5:22-23) Let’s train like medical professionals!

For many centuries Christians who “ought to be teachers” have been trained to sit passively and be taught the same religious basics, what the Bible calls “milk, not solid food,” over and over week after week and year after year. That tedious teaching (that never graduates anybody) has trained Christians to be spiritually inexperienced infants. Pastors have repeatedly given their congregations the same basic info about Christ, but they have given them little or no practical, hands-on training in and experience of being personally led by His Spirit. (Romans 8:14)

The Bible says in Hebrews 5:12-6:1: “Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food! For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.”

It is time for Christians to do what the Bible says. (James 1:22) It’s time to set aside our redundant religious infancy and to go into rigorous training for spiritual maturity. But how?

Stop the repetitive Sunday service passivity. Make church interactive and hands on. Enough teaching about prayer, train and release people to pray. Enough teaching about heaven, train people to experience the will of God “on earth as it is in heaven.” Stop teaching people the same information about God, train them to experience, demonstrate, and share His reality. Stop teaching people about community, train them to obey the 50+ New Testament “one another” commands here and now. Stop teaching about Jesus like He’s not in the room, train people to continually listen to and obey Him. Stop keeping Christians spiritual babies, train them to be mature and mighty men and women of God.

The most effective way to live as a Christian is to ignore your own desires, feelings, and opinions and instead listen to, follow, and obey the risen Jesus throughout each day. If you really want to grow strong in the Lord, read the Bible every day with a humble hungry heart and let God the Holy Spirit teach you. The Christian way of life involves two-way communication with God and following His desires instead of your own.