Mature age, mature faith?

Message for June 23, 2011.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember your parents in their senior years. You owe them your gratitude for bringing you into the world, for nurturing, for your education and for who you've become. Although, they also have their failures and inconsistencies that you will realize later in your mature years in the faith, teach them what you know.

Don't mock or ridicule their old fashioned ideas and misconceptions because it is not ignorance, merely their immaturity in their faith. For some, maturity in age doesn't mean they have grown in their faith too. Faith doesn't grow with each trial that you've encountered and won if the grace of the Holy Spirit is not with you. Faith is a gift and if it is not given to someone then it will be impossible for them to know what it is.

They may say they believe but they will always be anxious. Trials are meant to teach you about putting your faith in Me but if you consider it as your own personal struggle then you have completely missed the point of the exercise.

For you to be blessed with faith, lay down your personal confidence of yourself, surrender in humility to My will, be a sheep in my sheep hold. One doesn't need two shepherds. Be a sheep, meek and gentle, always looking up to the shepherd, for by doing so you will experience the Shepherd's provision and loving kindness.

Parents should not be so proud of their years, that they can no longer bend and adapt to change. They should make an effort to grow their faith with their years.

A man full of confidence with his self worth will be blinded to the truth of his weakness, but a man who acknowledges his weakness and dependence on Me will grow with his faith.