Substance part 4
You are what you eat. What you feed is what will grow. What you magnify is what manifests in your life. But having said that, there's a maturation process that takes place. The Promised Land (of rest) is a land that flows with milk and honey. Milk is righteousness, and honey is revealtion. That's where we start. That's what we eat when we're babies. But that's not where we stay. Look at Hebrews 5:12-14, "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." There's a lot here so let's dig into it. First, it's not a bad thing to be a babe who is unskilful in the word of righteousness. That's where you start. That's where you HAVE to start. And notice that you start at righteousness. You start at revelation. Milk and honey. You aren't evil and need to become good. You are perfect, and you are simply finding out what it means to BE perfect. And that's where the maturation comes in. That's where "those who by reason of USE" comes in. Using what you've got, instead of trying to get something you haven't got. If you don't use it, you lose it, right? But when you use it it gets stronger. Then you stop discerning BETWEEN good and evil, and you start to discern BOTH good and evil. You start to understand that BOTH good and evil were on the same tree of death. The fig tree that Jesus cursed because it couldn't produce any fruit. There was nothing substantial on it. Nothing that could satisfy our appetite. Because our appetite is to experience love; both by being loved and by loving others. Both by receiving and releasing. That's what real. That's what we have faith in. Remember Jesus said, "...Have faith in God" (Mark 11:22). Sometimes it's like we want to put faith in faith. We want to believe something that ISN'T real in order to MAKE it real. But, again, that's hope. That's not faith. Faith is being persuaded of the truth. Knowing and believing the love of God because He told you what His love is--laying His life down for you--and then He want to the cross and SHOWED you that love. He gave us THE measure of faith so that we could move past milk, and start chewing on meat. So we could sink our teeth into something real. Something that can fill us up. And if it's a God-shaped (love-shaped) hole you're trying to fill, well, there's only one thing that can fill it. God. Love. That's what we're hungry for. And that's the table that Jesus prepared for us in the presence of our enemies. That's why Jesus stands at the door and knocks, so that when we answer He can come in and sup with us. He can fill us up to overflowing with the thing we've been craving. And then we can let it overflow out of us naturally. We can share what we've got with those who need it. Which, as always, is everybody. Everybody needs love. Love is ALL we need. It's is the real. The thing of substance that makes life worth living. That makes it POSSIBLE to live. It's what we believe in, when we have faith in God. Because God is love. Faith in God IS faith in love!