NEXT STEPS - "You Are What You Eat"

When I was a child, I remember when those little candies, NERDS™, came out. I could buy a box of them for about 25¢ at the local milk store, along with 1¢ TOOTSIE ROLLS™, and 5¢ LAFFY TAFFY™ (my personal favorite was the Fruit Punch flavor)... do I sound like one of those, "I-used-to-walk-five-miles-uphill-both-ways-through-the-snow-to-school" kind of guys? HaHa!

Anyway, I say all that to say this: whenever any of us saw one of our friends eating NERDS™, we would inevitably shout out, "You are what you eat!"

Chuckle, chuckle, Ha, Ha...it still brings a little bit of a nostalgic smile to my face today.

I couldn't help thinking of that old saying, "you are what you eat" when Pastor Dave was speaking this past Sunday. Using the analogy of eating a cow (sorry to all my vegetarian and vegan friends), Pastor Dave drew an amazing parallel to how our stomach enzymes break down the essential ingredients of the meat, how our body uses those to build up our new cells, and how it equates to our spiritual diet. In essence, he was challenging us if, physically, "you are what you eat", then the same principle would hold true, spiritually.

Simple, honest, direct... and yet, I was very challenged by that thought!

Just as I try to pay attention to what I'm putting in my natural diet (let's be honest, my wife is doing much better at paying attention for me), I must also be aware of what I am feeding my soul and spirit. 

Think about it: if in the natural, all we ever eat is junk food, our cells will degenerate. We will be unhealthy, obese, sluggish, etc... The same applies in the spiritual.

If all we consume are the "things of this world", then our spiritual bodies will be unhealthy and sluggish as well. Our spiritual diet must consist of the healthy choices such as more time in the Word rather than in the television, more time in prayer than in play, more time in service than in selfishness. After all, if we are what we eat, who really wants to be one of the spiritual NERDS™?


For more NEXT STEPS, please visit: http://www.livingwaters.org/resources/next-steps.html