You Are What You Eat
Hi guys, welcome back. Thank you for tuning in again! Not sure about you guys, but I’m so excited for the New Year - probably more than I am for Christmas to be honest. I just love fresh starts, new beginnings, making vision boards, planning all the things I want to do and achieve in the new year. I know it’s going to be such a beautiful year by God’s grace… anyway, lets get into today’s topic.
I’m sure you’ve probably heard the saying “you are what you eat”, meaning that our bodies naturally respond accordingly to whatever we have chosen to fill ourselves with. So, if I choose to eat a load of junk food consistently, I’m pretty sure that I will see the consequences on the scales and in the weakening of my physical health. The same way if I choose to feed myself healthy food, my body is strengthened and nourished, meaning that I am able to function the way that I should.
It’s the same spiritually. When we choose to intentionally fill ourselves with spiritual food our spirit is strengthened. Whereas if we live as carnal christians and are constantly being fed by the things of this world our flesh becomes stronger, making it harder to have a spiritual mind, have godly desires and fulfil His calling for our lives.
The bible says in Galatians 5:16-18, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another…”. One of the key points highlighted to me in this scripture is when it says that the flesh and the spirit are “contrary” to one another. Meaning, I can’t feed the flesh and somehow expect to be this spiritually minded on fire for God christian - it just doesn’t work like that.
Here’s an example… There have been times where I will wake up in the morning, spend time with Jesus and then by the end of the day feel completely spiritually drained. And God showed me that it’s all to do with what I feed myself after my quiet time. What do I feed myself once I have finished spending time with Him - when I’m going about my day to day?
Because it’s all fine and well having an amazing time of prayer and bible study in the morning - but then what do I follow it up with afterwards. Is it contrary to all the spiritual food that I have just filled myself up with?
And funnily enough I found that in these times where I have felt so spiritually drained, my days are filled with absolute rubbish lol - spending how many hours on Instagram, online shopping or binge watching YouTube vlogs. And so i’ve found that when I swap these things for things that are spiritually edifying e.g. sermons, podcasts, praying while I’m doing my day to day tasks - my spirit is fed, and so I have a desire for the things of God and to spend time with Him. So now, the time I have spent with Him in the morning is now being added onto by all the other bits of spiritual food I’m consuming in the day.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:24 that “no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other.”. We can’t accept Jesus into our lives and expect Him to bless us and use us whilst we still fill ourselves with the things from the world - the same world that He saved us from.
I was listening to a sermon by Pastor Garret King called “When Disciples Get Married” (not directly related to the topic but I’ve still linked below) and one of the things he mentioned was that - “after we accept Jesus into our lives as our Saviour, He must also become our Lord.”. He must become the Lord of our lives, the Lord of our decisions, our choices, of what we feed ourselves. But we only really allow Him to do that when we draw near to Him by feeding our spirit man.
One of my favourite scriptures is Psalm 1:2-3 which says, “…his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of living water, that brings forth fruit in it’s season…”. Notice the scripture says that this blessed man meditates on the things of God DAY AND NIGHT - not just for 20/30 minutes in the morning. That tells me that if I want to be like a tree planted, if I wanted to be a blessed girl, if I want to bring forth fruit in season I must be feeding myself constantly with the things of God. Feeding myself with things that strengthen my spirit and not my flesh.
And no, initially it probably won’t be easy to make these swaps but that’s why it’s a sacrifice. The way I look at it is - choose your hard. Choose the hard of discipling your flesh now and being blessed because of it, with a deeper relationship with Jesus - our Father. Or choose the hard of taking the easy route now, continuing on in feeding your flesh and missing out on getting to encounter Jesus on that deeper level. It’s our choice…
So I encourage you to think about what you’re feeding yourself? Is it leading you closer to Jesus or away from Him? Is it feeding the Spirit man or your flesh? And most importantly ask God, because there may be things you consume on a day to day that you don’t even realise are feeding your flesh! And remember His will is for us to walk closer to Him, He said to us “draw near to Me and I will draw near to you” (James 4:8). So as you begin to exchange these fleshy things for spiritual things just know that it’s drawing you closer to Him. And a deeper relationship with Him is worth it all.
If you’ve got this far, thanks for reading - I hope that this has blessed you. I am thinking of doing a part two to this with some more practical ways that you can feed yourself spiritually, so stay tuned.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” - Galatians 6:7-8
LINKS
SERMON LINK - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqnyu6EA97A&list=PLTXlNd1L4iXOGAX3lvIb4F2ivI3qMTqWw&index=7