Growing in the Faith

Objects: A photo album with baby pictures

Theme: The Christian Life

Scripture:  And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  Matthew 3:17

This is a book that is very important to me.  It is a photo album.  It is a photo album of our son when he was a baby.  As you can see, I started taking pictures of him the day he was born.  This picture was taken when he was less than one day old.  I was so proud of him and I thought he was the most beautiful baby in the world.

This isn’t the only photo album we have with pictures of our son.  We have many other albums full of pictures that we took as he grew up.  You see, even though we were proud of him as a baby and thought he was beautiful, we didn’t want him to stay a baby all of his life.  It was a joy to watch him grow.

This morning we saw a baptism.  Baptism is like a baby picture.  When a person walks out of the baptistery, they are babes in Christ, and I imagine that their Heavenly Father looks down upon them and is proud of them just as he was when Jesus was baptized. When Jesus came out of the water, God said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

Even though God is proud of his children, he doesn’t want them to remain babies all their lives.  He wants them to grow and mature as Christians.  Some people walk out of that baptistery and they remain babes in Christ all of their lives.  Even though God still loves them, he probably isn’t very proud of them.  He wants them to grow spiritually, just as they grow physically.

Dear Lord, help us to grow in our Christian faith so that we may be children of whom you can be proud.   Amen