By Leo Sekoere
In the previous post I alluded that spiritual people are
those who are led by the Holy Spirit. These are the “Sons” that have received a
map to the heart of God; they can please God because they have divine
enablement to understand what God wants, through His Spirit. In the Old
Testament people settled for religion and ritualistic approaches to pleasing
God because there was a veil separating them from walking in comprehensive
revelation of who God is. This annoyed our God, we can see this in Isaiah
Chapter 1:11-16 where He says things like “To what
purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, “Bring no more
futile sacrifices…”, “Your New Moons and
appointed feasts, My soul hates…” , “Even though you make many
prayers, I will not hear...” even in Amos 5:21-23 we hear how The Lord
hated futile sacrifices and how they meant nothing to Him. This is why He tore
the veil and gave us access to His Holy presence and relationship with Him (Matthew
27:51). Religion got replaced by relationship.
I’m going to attempt to go deeper, with my limited experience
on relationships! Ha ha ha!, Here it goes: When one starts a relationship with the love
of their lives there is mutual understanding (tied to willingness) that they
both have to play a part in pleasing each other and getting to know each other.
It’s more than just saying “Yes, I will enter into courtship with you” there is
a whole new world behind saying “yes”. There is proving your love, going on
romantic dates, learning how to communicate, there is also affirmation of
relationship status… You know this is Spirit talk! If it wasn’t, I was not going
to be able to explain such things. Anywayyyyy, this is the same with our God
although the difference is that there is nothing we can do to make Him love us
more YET when we show our love to Him He grants us intimacy. He moves us from
babies receiving spiritual milk (being unskilled in the word of righteousness-Hebrews
5:13) to being full of age, ingesting spiritual solids (being those who by
reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both evil and good-Hebrews
5:14). I hope you see what I just did there! In a relationship, one has to get
to the point where they advance from being “Baby” to “Life time partner bound
by marriage covenant.” When we solidify our relationship with Christ He allows
us to progress into spiritual growth!
The sad thing that is happening now-a-days is that we have
adults that have been “Born again” for over twenty years yet they are spiritual
babies. They are spiritually malnourished! Oh My Saviour!! Let’s stay here for
a while:
Spiritual Malnutrition
We have defined spirituality now let us define malnutrition.
The following information has been sourced from the World Food Programme website
https://www.wfp.org/hunger/malnutrition.
*A malnourished person finds that their body has
difficulty doing normal things such as growing and resisting disease. Physical
work becomes problematic and even learning abilities can be diminished.
In 1 Peter 2:2, the man of God exhorts the Jewish believers
to desire the pure milk of the word that they may grow. As children of God,
born of the Spirit we need to feed ourselves with the word of God so that we
can grow and resist “disease” (the corruption from the world). Since we are
Children of God we are meant to walk in power just like Christ did on earth.
Like him we are supposed to be followed by miracles, signs and wonders, have a
prayer life and call the work of GOD “our food”- This is our “Normal”.
Spiritual Malnutrition makes sure that we have difficulty doing “Normal” things,
we find praying unpleasant and we have nothing to say to God. We find
fellowship boring we’d rather stay at home watching television. WFP states that
malnutrition can also lead to learning disabilities and less productivity.
People with spiritual malnutrition cannot understand the word of God nor any
spiritual revelation. They have nothing to offer to the dying world, they are
walking with stinking dead faith that James 2:14-17 says cannot save anyone.
*When a person is not getting enough food or not getting
the right sort of food, malnutrition
is just around the corner.
Feed on spiritual material. Hang around people that feed
you. Listen to spiritual music that teaches you about who God is. Watch what
you consume! I watched a missionary on television that was explaining some of
the hardships that children in the poorest parts of Africa have to endure. During
the program he showed us a video clip of a little boy that was so hungry that
he resolved to eating soil just to fill his stomach and alleviate nausea and
other physical effects of hunger. I was in tears! Even though it was working, soil
contains substances and toxins that can harm that little boy. Recently God
showed me that this is what His children are doing. We feel the hunger for the
things of God but we end up choosing something else to fill us up.
As born-again
children of God we need to stop choosing worldly substitutes for spiritual fulfillment.
It’s a hunger that only spiritual food can fill.
*Malnutrition at an early age leads to reduced physical
and mental development during childhood.
Hebrews 5:12- 14 tells us that we need to first become
babies then grow into adults, we cannot stay in the middle. We need proper food
to aid our spiritual development.This is what I was talking about. God gives a
special wisdom to the spiritually matured. It’s such a pain to see an adult
that has been born-again for years walking without that wisdom, knowledge and
understanding from God. They literally sound like children, talking about what
they don’t fully know/understand.
*There are two sides to eliminating malnutrition:
- Sustaining the quality and quantity of food a person eats; and
- Ensuring adequate health care and a healthy environment.
Thank God we can’t have too much of God, we simply cannot
contain Him. He is bigger than our bellies can hold. We can binge on spiritual
food, all the better for our growth. We need
to take care of our spirits by being surrounded with more of God- all that He
is.
It’s not enough to have been baptized by the spirit, we
need to grow! For this reason the Holy Spirit hi-jacked Jude’s letter (Jude
chapter 1). Jude planned to write a lovely letter concerning common salvation
but the Holy Spirit compelled him to tell the saints to “Contend earnestly for
the faith”-verse 3. Evil times are here, satan is already moving in to the
church and bringing his legions of demons with him to confuse us. he knows the
power released in spiritual solids and he is doing everything in his power to
ensure that we stay in spiritual infancy-undiscerning and feeble. The danger is
real! Let’s heed the call of our master and STAY SPIRITUAL.
