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Episode 14- Chapter 12

Transcription

Hello there. Welcome to the latest in a series of podcasts that follow along with our book, The Wizard of God. This is Steve Roine. Today we're going to be discussing Chapter 12. Once again, you're invited to download a free digital copy of The Wizard of God from our website, wizardofgod.com. Or if you prefer, you can get a paper copy online through Amazon or Barnes & Noble. In these podcasts, we're going chapter by chapter discussing our character's journey through the land of god. If you haven't read chapters 1 through 12 yet, and /or listened to the previous podcast, please do. I know I say this every time, but if you haven't read chapter 12, please do before you listen to this podcast.

Okay? Let's get started. I'm very excited because chapter 12 is all about food. Who doesn't love food? And as we're in the land of God, the food will be discussing is spiritual food. The Bible is full of references to food. Listen to this prophecy for telling the feasts that Jesus the Messiah would bring to the world from Isaiah chapter 55 in the Amplified bible starting in verse 1,

"Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come by grain and eat, come by wine and milk, without money and without cost, simply accept it as a gift from God. Why do you spend your money for what is not bread and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight your soul. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear to listen and come to me, hear that your soul may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies promised and shown to David.”

This is good news. But food isn't the first or the second thing that usually comes to mind when we are talking about God. Religion is usually number one. What we need to do in order to get right with God, to avoid punishment, or to receive mercy in some way. This is why a lot of people aren't interested in God, but everyone needs food, and everyone I know loves food. Jesus said,

"I am food. Let's be good." Let's begin here. Everyone is spiritually hungry and thirsty. So how do we, where do we find this free spiritual food? For those of us who have received Jesus, why does finding this promised spiritual food often seem so difficult? First let me ask you, do you have any expectation or hope of receiving spiritual food? Do you even believe that spiritual food exists?

I'm talking about real food in this life, here on earth, you know, today, when we need it. So many Christians haven't been taught and so have no expectation of receiving tangible spiritual food today.

This is the first problem, as we won't find something we're not looking for. So finding spiritual food begins with hope. In the natural, if we see someone chronically unhealthy, an unhealthy diet is often the first thing we suspect. If we see someone dangerously underweight, we usually suspect an eating disorder. But if we see someone spiritually unhealthy, you know, in sin or struggling, does it occur to us that they might just be hungry? When I was struggling as a relatively new Christian, the advice and counsel I was given most always was to go to the doctor and say, "I don't want to go to the doctor. I don't want work harder on my spiritual life. Work harder for God. Pray more. Read my Bible more. Come to church more.”

Of course most of the sermons I heard in church gave me the same basic message. Seek God harder with your whole heart. The problem was I felt and so I believed that my heart was broken into pieces. I felt far away from God and didn't know how to find him. I came to hearing that my struggles, my lack of spiritual health or strength, was a lack of work on my part. And definitely faith on my part. The problem was me, which is of course exactly what I suspected. I believe the answer was for me to have more faith, but I didn't know how to get it. I was just one of the many desperately thirsty and hungry Christians that are told to work harder. harder in order to find food. This is the government way, remember? We work first, we work today, someday we will eat, you know, in heaven. For now, be patient and get back to work. This plan doesn't make sense in the natural.

If we were trying to help someone who was struggling in life, we would naturally look first to see if their basic needs were being met. If they were desperately hungry, we would of course feed them first, before we asked them to do anything. Work would be a part of their future new life, but not until they were fed and strengthened. Some churches advertise, promise to feed people, and thank God some do. But in my experience, what was advertised as food didn't satisfy, didn't feed me. Like the four friends at the E.C. Cafe, I left as hungry as I came in. ​​all I did was make a scene. No one seemed to know what I was talking about. Reading the menu was all they knew or could even imagine. I want to explore a question in this podcast. Is there such a thing as spiritual food? And if so, what is it? Jesus spoke a lot about food and drink. His first miracle was turning barrels of water into wine for a wedding feast. Barrels. He didn't speak of or serve symbolic wine. Food that was or only shadows of things to come. He was the promised one who had come to feed really feed all those who came to him.

How amazing and infinitely sad it is that some of his professed followers have perverted his message into a tasteless unsatisfying symbolic. Don't confuse Jesus with this charade my friends! He has nothing to do with it. So what's happening at the AC cafe? Can reading menus memorize? Memorizing, and reciting secrets really be considered food at the E.C.?

It can't be the only food, can it? Everybody has to eat something. This is confusing and offensive to religious leaders to be confronted about the reality of, the existence of, the need of tangible spiritual food. Remember the waiter, the manager, and the customers of the cafe? They were confused and offended with the honor for causing such a scene.

But she wasn't looking for trouble. She was just hungry. I'd like to take a look at a scene, an outright scandal Jesus created about food that was recorded in John chapter six.

If you wanna open your Bibles and read along, you can. And I would highly suggest reading John 6, meditating on it. John chapter 6 is all about food. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus fed the huge crowd in the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and they pressed him for more. They wanted a second coming of Moses.

They wanted their manna from heaven. They believed all their problems and solutions were in the flesh, the carnal or natural world. By the way, carnal can mean simple desires, but carnal simply means of the flesh. of the natural. The religious people who made up the crowd in John 6 were taught and believed that the promised Savior, the Messiah, would come and deliver them from political and economic bondage.

But Jesus came to deal with sin on a completely different level, radically, at the root. He also promised to give them food that would fill them in ways they'd never dreamed of.

Let's begin in John 6, verse 26. Jesus says, "Truly, truly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of some of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on him the Father God has set his seal."

The crowd had no idea what food Jesus was talking about. The food he was speaking about was unheard of prior to his coming. Yes, it was prophesied in places like Isaiah 55, but most people assume God was promising free natural food. But whatever food it was, it was always for the future, never for today. He tells the people here to seek him in order to resist this eternal life, food. He tells people he will give it to them freely if they just seek him. One point here is don't confuse that the word work here implies earning wages. Work here just means to earnestly seek after. Obviously the people didn't earn the food he just give to them in the miracle of the loaves in the fish. They were seeking him and he fed them because they were hungry.

They didn't earn it or couldn't earn it, and in the same way spiritual food and drink cannot be earned it is given freely by Jesus but we're likely honored with the peaches chef we will naturally try to pay our own way but the price has already been paid in full for all time and it is impossible to add to what Jesus has paid what Jesus has finished finished.

But there can be no finding without seeking. It is impossible. The people were confused about how to work for the food Jesus promised, so we told them what to do. Verse 28 of John 6, "Therefore they said to him, 'What are we to do so that we may accomplish the works of God?'" Or some translations say, "Work the works of God. Do the works of God." Verse 29, "Jesus answered and said to them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.' So they said to him, 'What then are you going to do as a sign that we may believe? Believe in you. What work are you performing?

Our Father is eight manna in the wilderness. As it is written, 'He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.' Jesus then said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread.' out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, "Therefore, Lord, always give us this bread." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will not be hungry and the one who believes on me will never be thirsty or will never thirst."

Wow! There is such a thing as spiritual food and Jesus is the bread, the food. He is the bread of life and He really gives Himself to those who come and believe on Him.

The only work of God is to believe in, to believe on Jesus. This is the work of God. But of course the people were still clueless and there's another problem. It's highly offensive. to the religious mind to be told that they have no ability to earn their own way. Jesus told the Pharisees in John 5 that they were continually seeking glory or a good opinion from one another.

While there is no glory in being so helpless, you need mercy, charity, free food. We want to work it out ourselves, create a system where we can earn what we need. The true gospel is foolishness to some and a scandal to others. Paul makes this point clear in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 22 through 24. Well, offensive or not, foolish or not, Jesus didn't water down his message in order to make it easier to swallow. He doubled down, as it were. We're going to move on with John 6 starting in verse 51.

"I am the living bread that came down out of heaven." If anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever, and the bread which I will give for the life of the world also is my flesh." Then the Jews began to argue with one another saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise raise him up on the last day, for my flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, the one who eats me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down out of heaven, not as the Father ate and died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.

Wow. So much that could be said. So much to explore later. But concerning our question, Jesus says he is the promised spiritual food and that he is definitely to be consumed here and now. Not someday in heaven. He says that he is the food that we must consume to have life in us. The carnal minds of those listening were of course completely blown at this point and highly offended and /or confused.

It's foolishness and scandalous to the natural mind to be told that Jesus himself is the actual bread of heaven. So is Jesus telling us to become cannibals and literally eat his flesh? He answers this question.

Go on to verse 60. "Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this said, 'This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?' When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complained about this, he said to them, 'Does this offend you? What then, if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing.

The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life.'" No, Jesus wasn't suggesting can but he also wasn't speaking metaphorically.

He was speaking spiritual words. Jesus was revealing spiritual truth that one day soon would be comprehended, would be known by those who were born of the Spirit. I believe this is such an important verse that sums up such an important chapter or passage.

Jesus said my words are spirit and our life. So can you consume? Can you eat words? I don't mean the idiom about admitting you were wrong. The guy ate his words.

Now I'm saying, I'm asking, can we literally eat spiritual words? We'll consider these verses from the Old Testament. Ezekiel chapter 3 verse 1, "Then he, being God, said to me, 'Son of man, eat what you find. Eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel.' So I opened my mouth and and he fed me this scroll and he said to me son of man feed your stomach and fill your body with the scroll that I'm giving you.

Then I ate it and it was sweet as honey in my mouth. Then he said to me son of man go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them." Jeremiah 15 verse 16 from the amplified.

"Your words were found and I ate them." them, and your words became a joy to me, and the delight of my heart, for I have been called by your name, O Lord God of Hosts." I love these verses.

My friends, nobody. Nobody can truly speak the words of God, the words of Jesus, unless they have first eaten them. So, becoming a spiritual leader at its core. core is not an intellectual or academic matter. It's an experiential, spiritual matter. If we eat his words, we can speak his words and not ours. Words of the flesh will fail, but his words are life. This is a foundational truth of the gospel.

In Matthew 14, when the thousands had gathered to hear from Jesus, the disciples wanted to hear from him. to send them away to nearby villages to find food. Jesus said, "No need to send them away. You feed them." This is the ministry of the New Covenant.

Nothing less than this is the ministry of the gospel. In John 21, Jesus told Peter, "Feed my sheep." He didn't tell them about me.

He didn't say tell them about food. He didn't say draw a perfect diagram of food. or a map to where they can find food on their own. He said, "Peter, you feed my sheep." What is this food?

Jesus was telling Peter to feed to his sheep and how was Peter going to feed Jesus' sheep? What is food for the Christian? You can get a PhD in religion by studying and passing tests.

So is this spiritual food? Is it intellectual knowledge about the Bible? about God? Is this food? What if we would memorize the Bible? We've already spoke about the Pharisees' lifestyle in an earlier podcast.

Remember, they memorized the Bible of their day. Jesus said this to them in John 5 verse 39. You examine the scriptures. Other translations say you're always searching or studying the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is those very scriptures that testify of me and yet you are unwilling to come to me that you might have life. This is an amazing verse.


Academic achievement is highly prized and glorified in Christian religious circles. If Dr. So-and-So says so, well this carries a lot of weight. We would do well to remember that Jesus called the Bible experts of his day, people that have memorized, studied the Scriptures, blind leaders of the blind. But why were they blind? Is it wrong to study the Bible? No. In John 5:39, Jesus was teaching that the Scriptures were the menu, but He was the food, the meal, the feast. He was the source of life. He wasn't devaluing the Scriptures or those who studied them.

He was teaching that the Scriptures were there to point to Him. him the source of life and that we must go to him for life or remain blind. Remain lifeless.

"Unless you eat of me, you have no life in you," he said. Jesus didn't back off the statement when people were confused or offended. So of course anyone who would be a teacher, a leader, must first eat of him. The sin of the Pharisees wasn't studying the scriptures. The sin, the blindness, was refusing to come to Jesus for life.

John 1 verse 4, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." John 16 -6, Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." But for so many, faith in God is something that begins and ends. in the mind. 1 Corinthians 2 says,

"The natural mind can't even comprehend things of the Spirit, and God is the Spirit, so we can only know, comprehend God by and through the Spirit." In the same way, we can know about someone, maybe a lot about them. We can even memorize their 500 page biography, but in order to know them, we have to meet them, fellowship, and commune with them. The good news, my friend, is that can meet. We can commune, know God through the living Word and through the Holy Spirit. Yes, we search the scriptures, but with the anticipation, the expectation of someone reading a menu in the most glorious five -star restaurant you can imagine, the menu wonderfully describes all that we can dine on.

But in the end, we must dine on. or we will remain hungry. The ambience, the menu, isn't food. True spiritual food is Jesus.

He is life. He is bread, and His words can only be known or consumed to the Holy Spirit. This truth seems basic, common sense. God is Spirit, therefore we must commune with Him, know Him through the Holy Spirit. But Jesus doesn't walk the earth anymore, so how can we come to Him for life? This will be the subject of the rest of the book and the podcast, but for now, I'll say, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, "We must first be born again. We must be born of the Spirit in order to see the kingdom of God." Nobody can skip this part.

If you're not born of the Spirit, you can be right now. All you do is go to Jesus. Jesus for life, ask, and he will give you his life, eternal life freely.

It is a gift, a pure gift. But what about those who are born of the Spirit? What is our food? Different creations eat different food.

What's food for one creature can be totally inappropriate and unhealthy for another. For example, antelopes eat grass, lions eat antelopes. antelopes. Lions can't survive eating grass, and antelopes can't eat lions. Second Corinthians 5 .17 says, "Therefore, if any man is in Christ, is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is passed away.

Behold, all things have become new." This word "new" means of a new kind, unprecedented, uncommon, unheard of. Christians aren't new, improved humans with better morals, like the latest new improved laundry detergent. Second Corinthians 5 tells us that we are completely new creations, spiritual beings who have never existed before. And as spiritual beings, we will only be truly satisfied, nourished, fed with spiritual food. Nothing else will give us life, bring health and well -being. Nothing else will strengthen us. Nothing else will satisfy us.

When we as new creatures try to live in, live from the flesh, we're eating the food of our old nature. The result will be sickly, weak, anxious, depressed, unsatisfied, and will struggle through life. As Christians, we can feed on the flesh, but we'll be like lions eating grass. The flesh will not truly feed us or sustain us.

My friends, if you're struggling, struggling, maybe you are just hungry and thirsty. Hungry Christians usually go to some type of church to be fed. But are the churches managed by, owned by, spiritual chefs? Are there any chefs even on staff? Sometimes yes, but sadly, sometimes no. What is your experience?

If the reason Jesus came was to give us life, and more abundantly, then why is receiving this abundant life seemingly so hard, so elusive for so many Christians? The cafe scene is absurd, I understand. No one would really visit, and certainly not continue to visit, a restaurant for the sole purpose of reading the menu, would they? I'd like to ask another question.

Have you ever felt ashamed, guilty, maybe even condemned because you didn't enjoy reading the Bible? Bible? I've met so many who have. I did for a long time. Contrary to what we're taught, the Bible isn't a textbook, a manual, a DIY handbook on how to get our spiritual needs met. Again, Jesus said the scriptures exist to speak of Him. So that we would come to Him for life.

So giving His life is why Jesus came. Receiving life is why we come to Jesus. There's no conflict of interest here. It's wonderfully simple. Of course, it follows that finding and receiving life is why we go to church. But sadly, the false gospel sometimes comes in and has more to say on the subject.

Allow me to give an example. I was once associated with an organization that required daily one-hour quiet times for the students in their discipleship school. A number of of these students had plans to become missionaries. Part of this quiet time involved personal Bible reading. I believe in daily dedicated set-apart times to commune with and receive from God. These times are very important to me and are a great joy.

However, for the students I was looking at, I observed having these required quiet times didn't look very joyful. Some look bored and others look like they were in pain. Although the purpose of the hour was to commune with God, the looks on their faces that appeared something entirely different was going on.

One day I was talking with a couple of these students. I asked them about their quiet time struggles. They both believed God was good and wanted to give them everything they were seeking. They just didn't know how to get it, to receive it.

They felt lost and confused. But this wasn't for lack of trying in their parts. They were both very dedicated seekers. When Jesus said the work of God was simply to believe. Sadly, this wasn't the pure message these students were being taught. They didn't need to hear more three -step messages on how to try harder for God. They didn't need to re -rededicate themselves to trying harder.

They needed news. Good news. good news, of what Jesus had done to believe in. We were talking near a huge evergreen tree. I picked up a small dead branch at the base of the tree and held it up.

I asked if they felt like this dead branch before God. Lying on the ground, they felt dry and dead and they looked up at the beautiful tree, so alive, and thought if only I could figure out how to be God. grafted into the tree If I could only figure out how to receive all the life that God had for me They told me this was exactly how they felt They believed God was good and evergreen They just couldn't figure out how to receive the goodness.

Well, the first thing I told them was the bad news that what they were seeking was impossible a dead branch can't be grafted back into the tree It can't do anything but lay there and, well, be dead. Jesus said,

"Apart from me, you can do nothing.” This is an essential revelation. Then I threw the dead stick away. I grabbed on to a big green branch, shook it hard and said, "Now I've got good news for you. This is you. You are green. You are never apart from Jesus. You feel dry and dead, So you believe you're dead, but you are not. Jesus said,

"The one who believes in me has (present tense) eternal life, the life of God in them." He also said, "I am the vine. You are the branches.”

You are connected. This is who you really are. If you're in Christ, you are all ready for all time and future with the life of God. You have life even if you don't feel it. You are as green now as you'll be 10,000 years from now. What if you entered your quiet time, your Bible reading?


What if you came to the Lord as green, believing what Jesus says about you rather than what you've heard or what your feelings are telling you? Maybe Christianity has mainly been an academic or legal matter for you, a religious work project, something that begins and ends in your mind, drawing on your human effort to try to please God. If this is all it is, then what do we make of Jesus' words that we must eat of Him to have life, and why did He say the flesh profits nothing? My friend, maybe you've been struggling to get something you've already got or to become someone you already are. The answer to your struggle may be simply to humble yourself and embrace what Jesus says about you rather than what you've been taught or what you're feeling at one time or another. What happens if we truly do this?

Continue to do this? Our eyes begin to open and we begin to see to know know who we are. There were glorious beings filled with the Spirit of God.

1 Peter 1, verse 8, "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, you believe and you trust in Him, and you greatly rejoice and delight with inexpressible and glorious joy."

You probably don't have required quiet times where you are, but you may have struggled to commune with God, to receive grace, mercy, life. Allow me to announce that you are green. If you are in Christ, then Christ is in you,and you are as He is in this world, and you have all things that He has. Begin here. Know this truth. Believe it in your heart and abandon anything.

Reject anything that contradicts it. Don't fight this in your head. head to believe this. It's with the heart, with our spirit, we believe. Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." The truth is, if you're a Christian, you have an artesian spring of living water inside of you, and the reason we fail to experience this water may simply be, as 2 Corinthians 5 tells us, "We know ourselves according to the flesh. We believe defeat about ourselves. We believe what others say about us. What we've been told lies have been woven into the fabric of our hearts, and many of us have sadly meditated on these lies for many, many years. We aren't believing what Jesus says about us. We aren't knowing ourselves according to our new creation. And sadly, we will experience what we're believing in our heart, even if it is not true.

But today, you can believe the truth about who you are. If you are born of the Spirit, you are perpetually green, my friend. The life of God is in you and never leaves, never forsakes you. All this is a gift because of what Jesus did on the cross. And when he was raised from the grave, it is all finished according to Jesus. Paul declares about you in Colossians 2:10 that you are complete and clear in Christ. You are complete in Christ. Believe this. Only believe this. We don't buy or cook the bread of heaven, the wine, the living water with wages we've earned, with our spiritual works we eat, we drink of His fullness by grace. The gift of God is pure. It can be nothing if it isn't pure. A gift must be a gift or it isn't a gift.

We don't have a peace of the Holy Spirit in us according to our works. How hard we're trying. The Holy Spirit doesn't come in pieces. The Holy Spirit is a person. We have the person of the Holy Spirit in us, the life of God in us, and this is the gift of God. I'm gonna have to end with some more good news. Wouldn't it be wonderful? if when we were hungry for God, we could simply show up, sit down, and be fed, like at the pizza place behind the facade at the E.C.? They could smell the deliciousness as they walked in, and right away, without any hoopla, they had just sat down when the pizza chef came to their table with the most awesome, hot pizza. All the work had been done by him.

There was nothing to do. but eat. According to Jesus, it is the simple. Again, John 6:35, Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never thirst."

The promise of John 6:35 is amazing. It's also true. Jesus said this, and he is the truth. We begin by simply believing what Jesus promised us. rather than our experience or the experience of others. The first step to receiving spiritual food is believing it is real and available by grace alone.

The first step is believing on Jesus. When I first began to see that the gospel promised to give me tangible life, real food, things I needed today, the first gift I received from God was hope. God told me if I continued to seek, I would find. I would know. I would dine. Up to this point, my daily Christian life was like a dog chasing its tail.

This is what was going on in my head. If this is you and you can't even smell the food yet, I pray this podcast will give you hope. In closing from John 1 verse 16 from the Amplified Bible, Bible. Listen to this. John says,

"For out of His fullness, (the super abundance of His grace and truth) we have all received grace upon grace, spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, favor upon favor and gift heaped upon gift.”

Have ALL received.This is you, my friend. Amen. Amen. Until next time, grace and peace to you.


 

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