Wednesday, July 27, 2005

My Food

Jesus Tells about the Spiritual Harvest

Jesus said:

My food is to do what God wants! He is the one who sent me, and I must finish the work that he gave me to do. You may say that there are still four months until harvest time. But I tell you to look, and you will see that the fields are ripe and ready to harvest. Even now the harvest workers are receiving their reward by gathering a harvest that brings eternal life. Then everyone who planted the seed and everyone who harvests the crop will celebrate together. So the saying proves true, "Some plant the seed, and others harvest the crop." I am sending you to harvest crops in fields where others have done all the hard work. John 4:34-38

The "food" about which Jesus was speaking was his spiritual nourishment. It includes more than Bible study, prayer, and attending church. Spiritual nourishment also comes from doing God's will and helping to bring his work of salvation to completion. We are nourished not only by what we take in, but also by what we give out for God. In John 17:4, Jesus refers to completing God's work on earth.

I have brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you gave me to do.
John 17:4

1 comment:

Mark Lowenstein said...

Hunger!

We've got to hunger for fellowship regardless if there's difficult people we're struggling to get along with.

We've got to hunger for His righteousness if we're daily reading His Word and meditating on them.

We've got to hunger to worship God which is not confined only on Sundays but everyday, 24/7 and for eternity! Sadly, many Christians go when they feel like it, are on vacation from not only school but church, too, are controlled by others (kids, friends, time) rather than God (conviction, inspiration, motivation).

We've got to hunger for discipleship because God wants those who love Him to shine His light before others.

We've got to hunger for mission because hundreds of thousands of deaf people are without Christ. Doesn't that make you SQUIRM knowing that you know Christ and they don't! Too few harvesters are out in the field. In other words, too few of them are hungry in this area!

We've got to hunger for ministry because God has blessed each of us with a gift He wants us to use for His service and glory. When we're not performing His precious gift, we're not hungry to serve.

In the passage, John 4, the Disciples, unintentionally, tries to distract Jesus from the opportunity to harvest Samaria (Samaritan woman and her community) by urging Jesus to eat food, Jesus wasn't interested in this type of food. He was hungry for food in another plane! Spiritual food. Food that brings people to His Father. In the same way, Satan offers us "worldly food": time, events, extracurricular activites outside of the church that falls on Sundays and Wednesdays, social events that appears to be more fun than church, open captioned movies on Sundays (alot of people missed the blessedness of worshipping God because of this!) and hundreds more!! Like Jesus, we ought to say, "No to these because God comes first and the field is extremely ripe for harvest!" It's the harvest we ought to be hungry for! A Spiritual Harvest! So how hungry are you!?

If you're missing worship, missing the most important spiritual activities that provides you the eternal nourishment you need, you're NOT hungry.. You're simply hungry for the "worldly food", the food that spoils!