I just found out on Twitter that I’ve been published here in the Christmas edition of Go Tell it on the Mountain available here” http://issuu.com/tellitonthemountain/docs/issue8tellitonthemountain
I don’t know what pleases me more…finding out about this great magazine, being asked to submit an article, or finding out so many writers I’ve met on Twitter are featured in it as well.

I don’t think I’ve announced this yet, but in 2012 I’ll be regularly posting different pieces of fiction I’ve been writing. I’m excited to do that here. I’ve been doing it on TrevorLund.com for a while but am using that for ghostwriting now.

Check out the magazine and let me know what you think of it. I’m impressed with issuu.com as well. Maybe it’s time I start publishing a magazine or two myself. If you had a magazine, what would it be about?

From Milk To Meat
a message by Trevor Lund

When we take a look at what the writer of the book of Hebrews calls “milk”, it’s easy to see why there is so much spiritual immaturity in the western church. We focus on the milk and rarely move the meat. This message goes through the basics, but also gives clues for how to mature.Immediately download the MP3 to listen to on any device.

Download audio file (milktomeat.mp3)

Buy Now

Available from Expectancy Press.

About the Speaker:

Trevor Lund is a Christian Speaker, Author and Lead Dreamer for Expectancy Ministries. He lives with his beautiful wife and kids in Edmonton Canada and blogs at RevTrev.com

Now the writer of the book of Hebrews simply lists the 6 basic teachings and then moves on. I want to take a little time over the next few posts to upack them. If you’re interested you can hear this message as a podcast. to unpack them because I want to make sure we all have the basic understanding…don’t worry I will get to some meat.

1. Repenting from evil deeds
2. Placing our faith in God
3. Baptisms
4. The laying on of hands
5. The resurrection of the dead
6. Eternal judgment

Now a lot of these have theological doctrine tied to them. I’ll be sharing mine over the next several posts, but I want you to know I do consider much of what’s taught as adiaphora – that means “things indifferent”. We can agree to disagree on our understanding of how we understand these things work out while agreeing these are all milk that keep people being infants if that’s all we concentrate on.

Wow. That’s a slap in the face to some people. I’m sorry if it was so blunt. Too many of us are a part of denominations that centre around truth, so the most basic truth becomes the most important thing.

I believe God is calling us to family. In my family we disagree about a lot of things and it doesn’t change our relationship. You can disagree with my way of understanding the 6 basic teachings the writer of Hebrews has  outlined, I not going to want to disconnect with you.

The next few posts could be quite controversial. Love to have your thoughts on this one and those.

We know that God wants us to grow up, to mature, to become the mothers and fathers He’s made us to be. The first step to
growing up in Christ is to define what we’re eating. Babies need milk, maturing believers need meat. And honestly, I’m a little surprised what the Scripture defines as milk.

The writer of Hebrews writes: Hebrews 5:11-6:2 (New Living Translation)

There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.

So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

The writer defines maturity here as “through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.” So remember:

1. Maturity takes training and skills…you’re not expected to mature overnight.
2. In this passage, a sign of a mature person is they can recognize the difference between right and wrong.

Now the writer of Hebrews tells us to mature, we need to stop going over the basic teachings of Christ again-and-again.

Let’s understand there is great value in knowing the basics. There is good reason to call them the fundamentals. They are the foundation of all we understand. We need to know these things. It is important and I am working on a book that covers all these topics and perhaps a few more. They are being written with the knowledge it’s for baby Christians.

If the milk is all we focus on, we’re never going to mature.

In the next few posts I’m going back to the basics. It’s good to understand what the writer of Hebrews considers “milk” .

Did you catch them already? Let me know what you think they are.

photo credit: yto

From Milk to Meat - Episode 10 – RevTrev Radio

Download audio file (RTRadio1_10.mp3)

From Milk To Meat – Part 1

When we take a look at what the writer of the book of Hebrews calls “milk”, it’s easy to see why there is so much spiritual immaturity in the western church. We focus on the milk and rarely move the meat. This message goes through the basics, but also gives clues for how to mature.

Enjoy!

Writers need encouragement.

Since I’m getting ready to launch Hope In Transition, I’m on the look out for writing advice and encouragement. I’ve found some great help around doing up e-books. Since I have so many ready to go, I’m excited to see what comes of it.

I came across this video and was blown away with what the speaker says. She describes my writing experience with the Holy Spirit. Even though she uses different language and comes from a different perspective, she’s come upon some powerful truth.

Now consider the advantage we have as creative types, since we have the Holy Spirit.

Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life?
2 Corinthians 3:8 (New Living Translation)

Be encouraged to be creative, knowing God is working through you.

Blessings
Trevor

P.S. This Sunday I’m speaking on “How To Get the Good God Has For You”. There are too many Scriptures to get to in the sermon, so I’ll be posting my sermon notes here next week.  There will be a lot of posts, so be forewarned. I’ll be setting up a new category. Yes, it will eventually be available on RevTrev Radio.

I live in a Canada, far enough North that Christmas is almost always white. I can remember once when we got our first snow Christmas Eve, but that’s a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. We normally have snow that sticks around by the end of October. But God bless El Nino – this year we haven’t seen much of the white stuff.

So it’s been a little hard to get into the Christmas mood. Tonight as I write this, we’re setting up the Christmas tree and listening to Christmas music, and it’s starting to feel a bit more like Christmas… which reminds me I have a lot of Christmas shopping to do… maybe it’s a bad time to switch servers for my websites.

Oh well, it’s time to think about the Christmas story.

The Christmas Story comes down to us from antiquity from two main sources. I’m not counting the Armenian Infancy Gospels or the more modern Saint Nicholas folklore.

The Story of Jesus coming to earth as a baby are delivered to us by primarily two of the gospel writers – Matthew and Luke. They give the details. They highlight the fulfilled prophecy. They place the event in world and Jewish history. But the other two Gospels tell us a lot more His arrival and purpose than we might otherwise pick up on in either of the main historical accounts.

The beauty of historical accounts show us the authors main focus and main purpose and taking a few posts to look at how each Gospel writer handles the coming of Jesus as a baby reveals their message to their first readers and to us today.

So I’ll be posting my thoughts on the Christmas story according to each gospel writer over the next few days. I’ll be telling you my favorite. I hope you can tell me yours – comment on my site liberally.

Oh, final thing – I’ll be changing our gift for signing up for our weekly emails shortly. So if you want to be able to download the 2 books – Life Above the Negativity – from 10 minutes a day and Remembering Paradise – a $40 value – sign up for the weekly email today.