People cannot take things in once for all. Those who acquire a college education spend at least sixteen years in school: six years in elementary school, three years in junior high school, three years in high school, and four years in college. If you want to obtain a masters degree or a Ph.D., you will need even more time. According to Paul’s pattern, we should not only help people to be saved, to be forgiven of their sins, and to be regenerated; we must also help them grow. A mother not only gives birth to her child but cares for her child daily for at least eighteen years. Do not cling to the concept that as long as a person is saved everything is all right. This is like a mother neglecting her child as soon as he is born. If you do this, you are cruel and have no kindness. We must love our babes and care for them.
Paul said, “For though ye have ten thousand teachers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4:15, Gk.). He even speaks of Timothy as his “true child in the faith” (1 Tim. 1:2, Gk.). We all should adopt this concept. Those who are converted, being our children, should be precious to us. If, beginning now, we are all impressed that this is the Lord’s way of outreach in His recovery and practice this way, a year from now we all shall have a child in faith. It is a human desire for married people to want children. But in the eyes of God this is not as crucial as having children in faith. Children in the flesh are only good to cross us out. I crossed out my mother time and time again, and I have been crossed out many times by my own children. Praise the Lord that there is another kind of child—a true child in the faith. A child in the faith is dear and precious. I hope that in a few months many of us will be “pregnant,” and that by the end of the year many will give birth to a child. If the Lord delays His coming back, you may deliver a child in faith every year. Later, some of them may become elders in the churches or ministers of the Word in the Lord’s recovery. How wonderful this would be!
We must practice this way. Humanly speaking, we need much learning and, spiritually speaking, we need a great deal of revelation. Then we shall be able to help people and to feed them. If you have this learning and revelation, you will know the proper time to give the supply to the one on whom you are working. I hope that many of you will practice this way, not only by yourselves but in groups, coming together to pray, to fellowship, and to learn. I believe that the Lord will afford us the grace we need. Then in His recovery we shall have a solid foundation for a proper increase.