"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work."
God is a provider, a provider with a mission. The mission of the kingdom of God is the proliferation of blessing. Our lives are stocked by God with grace so that we become storehouses for those that would benefit from the blessings we have been given. Every blessing comes stamped with a name and God has a plan for the deliverance of that package to become your purpose. The verse above, 2 Corinthians 9:8, reminds us of that fact. God ensures that grace abounds toward us, not so that we can stockpile it, but so that we have sufficient product for our every good work. So that our ability to distribute is a net that can be cast far and wide.
So, if God is our provider, and provides with purpose, what does He provide?
Milk and meat.
It would be easy to extract only half of the message from the above verse; in it, we learn that God will provide abundantly. That message, would be the milk of the verse, so to speak. But the meat of the message is the culmination of the verse; the meat is that we are given to... in order that we may give.
Eventually, we must graduate from the elementary stage of faith; We must not nurse forever as infants, novices, when we should be advancing in faith. Every piece of scripture is like the opening verse in that it has deeper meaning, and is packed with purpose God plans for us to claim and fulfill. Meat He intends for us to eat after the preliminary provision of milk.
NEWBORN
At the beginning of our journey of faith, we are newly born to a lifestyle. "As newborns", 1 Peter 2:2 implores us, "desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow...". God provides milk for the newly born to faith; He grows us as if infants, sustained exclusively on His philosophy. For as newborns in the faith, we have cut off our former source: the philosophy of the world.
For God's philosophy is entirely opposite the world's. Therefore everything is new: new concepts, new character, new methods, new values. Scripture was designed for that newness; we read of the lives of many in the Bible who undertook that journey as well. Steadily, we learn about trust and perseverance and how messy that journey can be from people like Sarah and Joseph. We learn about hope and courage from people like Abraham and Moses who had to learn it too with no reference point beyond the milk, the word of God.
1 Peter 2:5 states that God is building us up like a house; His provision is meant not just to sustain but to build, to grow. We are taught His philosophy not simply so that we know it but so that we can apply it. The milk will set you up, but the meat will send you out.
MILK VERSUS MEAT
In 1 Corinthians 3:1-4 Paul explained that he had to alter his preaching; he preached to the newly born in faith, though they were not new, rather than to spiritual people fed by the meat of scripture. Paul was dismayed that he had to do so, dismayed that so many refused to live beyond the elementary principles. They were not engaged or focused or in alignment with this one philosophy, this distinctive philosophy of God.
Surely the milk of scripture is a comfort that cannot be compared, but the meat of scripture is a duty that cannot be neglected. The milk grows us, but the meat is given so that we may grow others. The milk is an introduction to the spirit in which we live, but the meat is the spirit through which we work. With the milk we change ourselves but with the meat we change our world.
Once God's provision constructs us, we must recognize that we were made to house. We are made strong for a purpose. We are stocked to provide. We are made a shelter so that we can stand in the rain with the soaking and make them dry. The meat is meant to sustain us through more spiritually rugged terrain. With milk God fixes what needs reparation inside of us so that with meat we are to fix what needs reparation outside of us, surrounding us.
GRADUATION
At a certain point, God should not have to teach us to play nice anymore. That should be a given. He should not have to prove His promises to us. He should not have to work for our trust, He should have it. He should not have to remind of His commandments, we should know them and follow them. At a certain point, scripture should evolve from lesson to directive. We should evolve from apprentices to fellow-workers with God. God does not teach us so that we can watch Him, He teaches us so that we can join Him.
Paul wrote a letter, Hebrews 5:12-14, in which he admonished the people who were unwilling to graduate from milk to meat.
"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Are you unskilled in the word of righteousness? If so, it is not through any fault of God. Scripture has been divinely commissioned, written and organized to exercise you into skillfulness. It is time to graduate from milk to meat. Ephesians 6:12 tells us that our battle is against powers and principalities, and how can we fight such things without the meat God provides? We would be too weak, too undernourished to ever stand. It is time to bulk up because that abundance of strength and power, courage and faith has purpose to fulfill.
You would not feed a newborn meat; they could not handle it. Neither could a full grown adult subsist merely on milk. To do so would be to expect too much of the former and not enough of the latter. So if you are reading scripture merely for yourself, you are neglecting your potential and purpose. God has provided hardier fuel so that your life has the power, the energy, the provision to extend beyond itself.