Romans 14:1-3 Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.

Faith needs to be exercised or it will remain weak. Exercise will also increase the appetite. You will find that an increase in appetite drives the desire for strong meat.

A common mistake in sharing these verses is the assumption that those who are weak in faith need nothing but God. These words are about attitudes towards those that are weak in faith. If we were to encourage them to stay weak why do we have pastors, teachers, sermons, lessons, and Sunday school?

Few churches today have discipleship classes. The assumption that making disciples only involves witnessing and making baby Christians misses the whole point of discipleship. If I were to put this in the framework of exercising faith, then I would ask you to step into the gym. Here we have many different pieces of equipment which are designed to build up certain muscle groups. In order to understand how each piece of equipment works and how to properly use them in order to obtain the most out of your time in the gym, you need a trainer.

In this gym the trainer is not the Holy Spirit, it is another disciple using the equipment and profiting from his own exercise. That disciple will give you a better understanding of how all the equipment works together to promote faith growth. In this case the equipment is the Word of God.

James 1:22-24 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

They place mirrors in a gym to allow you to check your form, not your vanity.

Hebrews 5:13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

Do you remember a time when you resented being called a baby? When we become born again at an age where self-image resents beginning from scratch there is a tendency to resent the milk of the word. One should not resent the milk of the word.

1 Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

Step two in this understanding about how and why sin enters into the life of a believing Christian is growth. That sincere milk has protective properties just as mother’s milk is best for newborns. It contains everything necessary for babies to grow up strong and healthy. It should not be taken lightly just because we do not consider ourselves babies.

Hebrews 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

This is what happens when you do not have a proper respect and understanding of the sincere milk of the word. We want to grow up to be of an age in the spirit which matches our self-image. We want to skip steps and the kingdom life does not work that way. Growth comes in proper stages according to His design and a proper diet.

Romans 14:2 For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.

In the first birth babes come to eat veggies before they are strong enough to walk. We who are of age walk in the natural and assume we can walk in the spirit just as soon as we are weaned off a diet of milk. Not so, we must become stronger in the faith in order to walk in the spirit. We need not strong meat to begin to walk, but we should accept that our walk will be unstable and fraught with falls.