Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
1 Peter 1:23-2:3 (NIV)
23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you.
2 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
When we are born we instinctually desire the pure milk that only our mother gives. It is a craving that is hardwired into us. Similarly, as children of God, we desire the pure milk of the Gospel that made us children in the first place! Without that pure milk we cannot grow in our faith. Peter is not telling us to be immature in this passage, but to never lose or deny that instinctual craving. The world might tell us that Jesus is not enough, that we need to rely on more than just the pure milk of the Gospel. But “growing up” in our salvation does not mean that we leave God’s free grace behind! It means that we grow deeper in our relationship with the one who gave us new birth and the pure milk to begin with! Ask God to increase in you a craving for His word!