The Green Page

     I have been aware of the group, Child Evangelism Fellowship, or "CEF" for the past 50 years or more.  At one church, I was the leader of the "junior church" where we would have a special time for the children that would come to our church.  These were kids that had not grown up in the church and had a problem sitting still for more than five minutes.  Every Tuesday evening, I would ride my bicycle to a church for a lesson prepared by CEF.  They would teach me the lesson that I was going to teach that following Sunday morning.  We had a lot of items to be used for illustrations including what CEF called, the Wordless Book.  You can tell the plan of salvation by using a book that is made of five basic colors.  You can get big ones and small ones to be used in these teaching exercise.  It had a gold, white red, black page with a green cover.  Green stood for "growth."   Second Peter 3:18 says, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen."  
      Peter, in his second epistle, closes with the verse just mentioned above.  His admonition to the readers was to "grow."   Believers are supposed to be growing in their faith day by day, and year by year.  This growth is a continual process and we grow in the Word of God and in our Christian lives, by studying the Word of God.  Peters admonition for us to grow goes on to say in what we are supposed to be growing which is grace and and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.  How are we going to do that?  It can only be accomplished by putting the Bible to practice in our lives.  We can start by taking in and following the "milk" of the Word of God, which Peter also mentions and 1 Peter 2:2-3.  In other places, we are taught to be involved in the "meat" of the Word which is going to be a bit stronger than just the milk.  We understand the illustration of Peter and Paul by comparing our spiritual growth with the growth of an infant.  Babies have to start out with milk and not a quarter pounder from the local fast food place.  The messages of the writers of the New Testament seem to always zero in on the importance of the Word of God.  This is our tool box and believe me, you are going to need a good set of spiritual tools in your tool box to be used in the various situations that are going to occur in your life.  We have been admonished to read, hear, study, meditate on and memorize the Word of God.  In so doing, we will be growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Praise god, again and again, for His message to us, the Bible.