Feed Them part 2
As important as natural food is--and it IS important--Spiritual food is like nothing else. If I can say it this way--if you find someone who feeds your soul... that's a rare and precious thing. Because our true identity is the inner man. The hidden man of the heart. And our true food and drink is love. The Holy Spirit--our love receptor, the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth... the truth that we are loved--is what strengthens us in the inner man. Eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ. Knowing who we are in Him by letting Him reveal to us who HE is in us. Partaking of the Divine Nature of God--which, again, is love--by letting God love us to overflowing and letting that love come out naturally. That's what it means to partake of the Divine Nature--to understand our new nature... our TRUE nature... and to live from the inside out. To know and believe that God's love is in us, and then (by knowing and believing) let it out. That's how we feed ourselves. That's what I believe one of my favorite Bible verses is talking about. "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God" (1 Samuel 30:6). David was in a rough spot. But he knew where to go to find his strength. Remember when we talked about strength? God's (LOVE'S) strength is made perfect in our weakness. If we think we can do it ourselves, I believe God will (to an extent) let us. But when we acknowledge that we can't... that's when He will. That's when we become strong. Because HE is strong in us. Let me try to say it another way: You can't give what you don't have. That's why when you're in an airplane they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before you try to help anyone else. Because if you're passed out on the floor you CAN'T help anyone else. So sometimes you have to strengthen yourself before you can be strong for someone else. Sometimes you have to feed yourself before you can feed someone else. And if we were to follow David's story we would see that that's exactly what happened. He encouraged himself in the Lord, and then he went out and took care of his people. There IS a benefit of feeling full, feeling satisfied, when you feed yourself. But its even greater when you put yourself in a good position to feed others. Because in the same way that you can't give what you don't have... you can only give what you do have. So if you fill yourself up with love... you can give love. And notice I didn't say, "If you get love." Because you already HAVE love. The Holy Spirit did not change us from something God didn't love to something God all of a sudden does love. God always has and always will love us. The Holy Spirit changed us from something that saw God's love as too good to be true--and unattainable, no matter how hard we tried--to something that sees God love for what it is; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Not too good to be true, but so good it MUST be true. So we feed on that fruit--the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Tree of Life--and we share that fruit with others. We encourage ourselves in the Lord, and then we encourage others. We receive and release the love of God. We let it in, and then as it fills us to overflowing, we let it out!