Balanced Diet

Does ice cream count as milk? Milk is good for you...calcium, vitamin D. So ice cream must be good for you. Maybe better...add a little strawberries or peaches (that's a serving of fruit!) and chopped pecans or peanuts (protein!).

Riley started out drinking formula then milk. He loves milk. He's beginning to slow down on the milk a little and is adding meat (chicken strips and roast beef, but no hamburgers?). His diet is beginning to balance a little.

Balance. That's the key. He'll never (or shouldn't) stop drinking milk. And if he'd never started eating meat, fruits, and vegetables he wouldn't have developed like he has. Proper health depends on a balanced diet.

Proper spiritual health depends on a balanced diet, too. Peter wrote that Christians should crave pure spiritual milk now that we have tasted that the Lord is good. The purpose is so that Christians will grow up in their salvation.

Spiritual health relies on a balanced diet of godly principles. We must never outgrow the bedrock principles of our faith: salvation by grace, God is love. But we must partake of meatier truths as we mature (in order to mature): faith in God's sovereignty, developing godly character, iron sharpens iron.

Sometimes Christians can be so involved in the study and application of meatier subjects that we lose sight of and appreciation for the basic principles. That's why we should focus on a balanced diet. As a pastor who dishes up the servings three times each week, I have to remember that and look for ways to lay out a balanced buffet. As parishioners, we must purposefully look for the basic and the advanced if we want to mature into healthy Christians.