Christian Living

Have You Been Weaned?

by Olawale Ogunsola
08/11/21
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The word "Being born again" is a phrase that many people do not understand. Many have gone to the ẹxtent that it has been trivialised. Those who are children of God who have experienced the all important "New Birth" find it difficult to explain what it really means. So this makes it difficult for many of those who need to be born again to know how to go about it, they do not understand it, so, they cannot embrace iit.
One of the practical ways of explaining the "New Birth" is to compare it with weaning a child.
What do I mean?
It is a very common campaign today throughout the world that every new baby should be breast fed for not less than six months without mixing anything with it. The benefits are so many. No space to enumerate them here.

After the mandatory six months breast feeding, other meals can be introduced to the child. This could be solid or liquid foods. One common thing to many children is that their love for breast milk still remains unchanged, irrespective of whatever food is introduced to them. It is because they have been accustomed to it and they derive many joy from it. The love is strong. The later introduced "strange food" was not fit to replace iit.
Beloved reader, how will you feel if you come across a two year old child still sucking breast? Does it depict right growth and maturity? When will such a child grow well to the stature of an adult to display all necessary features?
I think the answer is "No! He will never!" .
For a child to live a new and independent life, the parents, especially the mother, determine to put an end to breast feeding. The child will not understand every value connected with this action but later in life, he will do sso.
This was the case with Sarah, the wife of Abraham on Isaac. She declared,
"When Isaac grew up and was about to be weaned, Abraham prepared a huge feast to celebrate the occasion." Genesis 21:88.
Weaning a child into another new life calls for celebration with a huge feast. So it is with a new bbirth.
Everyone has a "milk" with which he has been living all his life. Sometimes it has become his life wire. A style of living which he enjoys. He has become accustomed to it but there is the need for growth and maturity that will give a new life. Beginning this new life calls for celebration. The parents, the neighbors and relatives as well as the child will experience "joy".
As every child has sweet experience with breast feeding, so is every man born into a sin that he enjoys. Romans 3:23 reveals,
"For everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard."
A breast fed child is immature as much as a sinner "falls short of God's glorious standard." Yet, God's expectation is for everybody to voluntarily forsake his former lifestyle of sin and come to a new better image and likeness of GGod.
This brings to the fore, the corellation between weaning a child and new birth that involves celebrating and feasting; in other words, there will be joy. The Holy Bible reveals,
"In the same way there is joy in the presence of God's angels
When even one sinner repents," Luke 15:110.
Weaning and new birth bring the same result: celebration and jjoy.
Let me bring in the case of Hannah, the mother of Prophet Samuel in I Samuel 1:21-23. The content is,
22 "But Hannah, did not go. She told her husband, wait until the boy is weaned. Then I will take him to Tabernacle and leave him there with the Lord permanently. 23(d) so she stayed home and nursed the boy until he was weaned."
What I want you, my reader, to pay attention to here is "leave him there with the Lord permanently. After weaning, that is new birth, permanence is the next, a weaned child never go back to breastfeeding whatever hhappens.
The same applies to new birth. It is to be in the Lord and be with Him forever, against all odds. With the new birth, the joy begins and never ends. What is better? My question now is "Have you been weaned? Have you experienced the new birth? Have angels of God rejoiced over you? Let it be! Stay blessed and prepared for the iminent coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Note for salvation :
35 "The father loves his son and has put everything into his hands.
36. And anyone who believes in God's son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God's angry judgment." John 3.
Note : All Scriptures quoted are from New Living Translation.