The Keys to Growing Spiritually

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why? No, you say, why why? Or why what? But why is it imperative that we study and pray? Seems like something that, after a while, becomes vain repetition. I mean, hey, how many times do you have to read this thing? So, you may be read it once or twice or three times or a dozen times. What does it accomplish? Does it accomplish anything in your life? Or is it just a ritual? Is it something that we do, like Catholics go through the rosary? Light candles or people have prayer wheels? A lot of people think that if they write prayers out, put them on a wheel or something, and the wind flips it around, that every time it goes around, it's a prayer going up to God. So therefore, they have these type of prayer wheels. How do you and I take prayer and Bible study and convert it into character? Convert it into spiritual strength, spiritual energy. Convert it into faith. Convert it into patience. Convert it into any number of things that you might think of. Or is that the purpose of it? There has to be a reason why we are encouraged to pray and study in the Scriptures. In Ephesians 6, 17, Ephesians 6, verse 17, we read this. To take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And praying always. So we're told that we should pray always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to the end with all perseverance, supplication for all the saints. So you and I should be, as other Scriptures say, instant in prayer. Meaning that when there's a need, we pray. Whether that's 20 times a day, 5 times a day, or however often that you and I, there may be times when you're going down the road, how often you go down the road, and traffic is crazy, and the weather is bad, and you say, help me. One could have an accident out here. And so you pray, and you ask for God's protection. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, beginning in verse 15, we find this concerning Bible study. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15. That from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation.

The first thing you learn is that you study the Scriptures. Why? Because they make you wise. In what way? To salvation. They reveal the path to salvation. They reveal what is required of an individual. They reveal how God brings about salvation. It says, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

And all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. So all Scripture is inspired, and is profitable for doctrine. So you learn doctrine, you get teaching, for reproof. So you get reproved for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. So by studying all of these elements come into play in your life. So you're corrected, you're reproved, you're instructed on how to be righteous. That the man of God may be complete. You see, it's through studying the Scriptures that you and I become complete, finished.

A finished product. We start out very unfinished, very rough. And when God gets through with us, He knocks all of the rough edges off. And He has a product there. And then notice, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So by studying, we become equipped. We learn what we need to be doing when it comes to good works.

So you find, then, that there is a legitimate reason why we should be praying and studying. But is there more to this than just what these couple of Scriptures reveal? I think one way we can understand this is by looking at how our physical bodies utilize and take food and convert it into energy. Have you ever stopped to analyze as you're eating every day why you're doing it? Well, no. Generally, you like it, don't you? You like food, so you eat. That's one reason. Another reason is you realize if you don't eat, you'll die.

So that's a big incentive to go ahead and eat also. But you also know that if you don't eat, you're not going to have the energy, you're not going to have the strength, you're not going to have the drive that you need to be able to accomplish work or whatever it is you're trying to do.

Both physically and spiritually, we need to be recharged and energized. Physically, you and I can get in a run-down condition. We can get sick. We need proper food. We need rest to build our bodies back up. And so we understand that you need a proper diet. You need a balanced diet. You need to eat the right types of food in order to be healthy. But spiritually, we need to be recharged with God's Spirit, so that we might have the power to overcome, power to grow, power to change, and to be a different person.

So with all of that in mind, let's take a look with the general thought about eating and comparing that to what we do spiritually. We all start out as babies. In Matthew 18, verses 1-6, you'll notice that Jesus Christ mentions that this is an attitude or an approach that we should have. Matthew 18, beginning in verse 1, At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

That was never too far from their minds. Who's going to be the greatest? And Jesus called him, a little child, said him in the midst of them, and said, Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. So you and I have to be like little children. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as a little child is the greatest in the kingdom.

And whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me. So you and I have to become converted like little children. Now when God looks down and He looks at us, here we are.

We may be older and wrinkled and gray and pudgy and unpudgy and whatever we might be. But God looks down, does He see a bunch of little children? Does He see little babies? Does He see someone there with his mouth wide open, ready to be fed? Or does He see something else?

Well, notice how Peter put it, because I think Peter was instructed by Christ. He heard what Christ had to say here. And back in 1 Peter 2, verses 1 and 2, notice. 1 Peter 2. Peter writes, Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, all hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, so just like a newborn baby, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.

Now, the word pure here means without guile. So you and I, then, are to desire, just like a newborn baby, desires milk. Do you ever see a newborn baby? If you've had a baby, yes. You've seen babies. And what is it that they want? They want to eat. They're hungry. They're smacking. Somehow, they've learned how to do this. And they want to be attached, and they want to start eating. And so there's this drive, this motivation they have. Well, it's talking about the type of food that you and I are to eat.

Is that that does not have any guile or any hypocrisy? And I think that's what he was bringing out in verse 1, Deceit, Hypocracy, Envy. All of these things. That we should desire it just like a newborn baby. Whether we're old in the faith or young in the faith. You know, been around for X number of years, or just very new hearing for the first time. We should thirst for the Word of God just like a baby cries for milk.

Desires milk. We've got some idea of the thirst of a healthy baby by, sometimes by the impatience, the aggressiveness. They determine why they suck and they swallow. Because when a baby is really hungry, he's hungry. And they want to eat. Well, this is the way we should be. It is through the pure word or milk of the word that a believer grows spiritually. Notice as it says here, that you may grow thereby. Normally, a baby for the first four to six months is just going to have water and milk that it's going to be drinking.

And it grows. It may start out at six, seven, eight pounds, and six months later can be fifteen, sixteen pounds. And where did that growth come from? Well, from the milk that it got from its mother. So the ultimate goal that all of us have in studying the word of God is spiritual growth.

That we might conform to the image of Jesus Christ. That we might have His character. That we grow to be like Him. A baby starts out on milk and then later on it goes to solid food. Actually, colostrum prepares a baby to receive milk. I think most of you are familiar with this, but colostrum is a yellowish fluid, rich in antibiotics and minerals that a mother's breast produces after giving birth before the production of real milk. It comes in first. It's the first thing that comes in.

It provides the newborn with immunity against a lot of infections. It helps to coat the stomach. And you have to realize, here's a baby. It's not been taking food into its stomach. It's been fed through an umbilical cord. Now, all at once, food is going to start entering into the stomach. You start putting things into the stomach before it's had the opportunity of having this colostrum enter into the stomach, coat it, and prepare the stomach so they can begin to receive milk. And then later on, solid food, that child can begin to have problems.

Now, God prepares our minds to receive His Word, to receive His direction, His spiritual food, so to speak, by His Spirit.

It is the Spirit of God that gets us ready, that prepares us so that we are receptive to the Word of God, to being fed by God's Word. God calls us through His Spirit. He opens our mind through His Spirit. He gives us knowledge through His Spirit. He leads us through His Spirit. And God works with us to be able to receive spiritual knowledge, our spiritual food, and to understand it, and to be able to assimilate it, and to be able to use it.

Colossum helps to prevent diseases, and God's Spirit helps us to avoid spiritual sicknesses.

God's Spirit is described as the Spirit of a sound mind. Not a crazy mind, not a loony mind, not an off-kelter, but of a sound mind.

God has given us the Spirit of love and power and of a sound mind. The more the Spirit of God we have, the sounder our minds can be.

The sounder we become in our thinking, our reasoning, our understanding, and everything that we do.

So God starts us out with His Spirit, and just like the cholesterol prepares the baby to receive food, so God's Spirit prepares us and gets us ready so that when we receive the spiritual food, we're able to absorb it. But guess what? The physical is always an analogy for the spiritual. Now, it breaks down in different, you know, eventually, but in many of the types, there is a type. A baby does not stay on milk forever, right? So it is true of us that we do not stay on milk forever. Back in Hebrews 5, verses 12-14, I want you to notice here, Hebrews 5, beginning in verse 12, what it says, For though by the time you ought to be teachers, so all of us are to be growing to where we could actually teach others, instruct others in God's way of life, he says you need one to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food.

So here again you find that after a while, a baby needs solid food. And you begin to introduce solid food to a baby a little at a time. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. Now when you compare the understanding of a baby to a full grown mature adult, there's a vast difference, isn't there? And so the Bible says if we remained as a baby, then we're unskilled in the word of God, meaning we're unskilled in the application of the word of God, in applying it to our lives, in applying it to everything that we do and how we treat one another, in our relationships, our relationship with God, whatever it might be. But it shows that solid food belongs to those who are of a full age. So you and I need to be of a full age. The word full age here is teleos, we're familiar with that word, and it means maturity.

It means brought to an end, or finished, completed, full grown, an adult, a full age, mature.

So you and I are to grow up spiritually. We are to become mature as Christians.

That is, those who by reason of use. So you and I have experiences, don't we? We go through this life, we have to live God's way. And through reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. So as we go through life, we have to make judgments. We have to apply God's law. We have to live by it. And we begin to make judgments as to what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's evil. And how do we know how to do that? Well, it's always based, I mean, here's the basis of it. This is the foundation, the Scriptures, that we base that upon.

Then in chapter 6, verse 1, Therefore leaving the discussions of the elementary principles, see the very basic principles, such as a baby would be involved with, of Christ, he says, Let us go on to perfection, or let us go on to maturity. And again, it is a form of the Word. It's not teleos exactly, but it's a form of it. And it means to maturity. So you and I are to grow up and go on to maturity. And we're not to go back again, Elaine, the foundation of repentance from dead works and the faith towards God, and so on. So you and I are to grow, and we are to be spiritually mature. Now, imagine today, if you went to a restaurant, and you were still on milk, and you're an adult, and you go in, and you order a half-gallon bottle of milk with a nipple on it, and everybody else is sitting out there, they're eating their filet mignon and their salmon and their chicken, or whatever it might be, and you're sitting there, and you're nursing on your bottle. Well, we know that that would look preposterous, wouldn't it? But spiritually speaking, that can happen. Spiritually speaking, we can still be taking the milk of the Word and not really have progressed to solid food like we should have. In Ephesians 4.13, we find again where this is mentioned, Ephesians 4, and we'll begin here in verse 13.

Now, let's notice here. It says, "'Til we all come in the unity of the faith." So you find here the purpose of a ministry, that God has placed the ministry here to help, well, going back to verse 12, "'For the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry or service, and for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all..." Now, here's the goal, here's the objective in verse 13 that we are to come to, until we've come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, and to a perfect man. Now, the word here for perfect, again, is talios, full-grown or mature man.

So this is what we are shooting for. This is the objective. This is where we're going. That we grow up to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, until we come to look like Jesus Christ in every aspect of our lives.

Christ said, if you'll remember, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, and that He was a reflection of His Father, of His character, His outlook. So you and I should be a reflection of Jesus Christ in our conduct. And then verse 15, speaking the truth in love, that we may grow up in all things into Him who is ahead.

Christ. So you and I are to grow up. Rather than we need to grow up in the ability to apply God's law.

We're to grow in grace and in knowledge, as we know that the Bible clearly says. So we are to become full-grown. We start out as babes, and there are different analogies used in the Bible.

One of the main analogies used throughout the Scriptures, we start as babies, and we grow up and we become mature. So when we become mature, grown up, then we can be in God's Kingdom. The other analogy in the Bibles, we're just a little fetus within the mother's womb. And we know that that starts out as one cell and grows until nine months later, can be born of the mother. So both analogies are there to demonstrate that we need to grow. Now in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 beginning in verse 1, the Apostle Paul knew this. And so consequently, he exhorted the church there in Corinth. And if there was ever a congregation that needed to grow up, it was this congregation.

They had all kinds of flaws, all kinds of problems. And he said, I, brethren, verse 1, 1 Corinthians 3, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. So he said, look, you're acting just like little babies. I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for unto now you are not able to receive it. Even now you are still not able. For you are still carnal, for where there is envy, strife, divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

For when one says, I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? So he exhorted them not to remain babies, but to grow up and to change, to mature. And here in verse 3 we find some of the elements that indicate when we haven't grown up, when we have envies, when we have strife, when we have division, when we behave just like carnal men around us. Now in chapter 14, here in 1 Corinthians, in verse 20, notice what Paul says. He says, brethren, do not be children in understanding.

However, in malice, be babies. Be like children when it comes to malice. But in understanding, be mature. So you and I are to mature. We are to grow. We are to change. So, brethren, you and I need to be a different person. So, brethren, you and I need to grow up. We need to become mature in understanding. Now, as I ask the question to start with, why do we eat? Well, we all like to eat. And I like to eat as well as the other person. You know, that's something we all have things that we favor that really appeal to us. And when they're put on the table, we can hardly resist, you know, eating. And sometimes eating a lot of whatever it might be. But again, what is its purpose? Well, it gives us strength. It gives us energy. We know that we must sustain our physical life, or we die.

We know that we have to have water, and that we have to have food, or we will die. Now, when it comes to water, it has been shown that if you lose just 2.5% of your body weight in water loss, you lose 25% of your efficiency. Now, that's talking about how you think, your strength, how you're able to do things. For a 175-pound man, that's about 2 quarts of water. So a 175-pound man losing 2 quarts of water, he begins to really be dehydrated.

He loses 25% of his capacity. As people who are trying to survive dehydrate, their blood becomes thicker and they have less volume of blood. This causes the heart to work harder because the blood is thicker and circulation of the blood is less effective. The less effective the blood is in flowing, the less you're getting to the brain, the less it is operating effectively. In a survival situation, losing 1 quarter of your physical and mental abilities due to dehydration can actually mean the end of your life.

So if you are out trying to survive and you don't have the same sharpness and capacity, then you find that you're not going to be able to continue on. So we know that the bottom line is you've got to drink a lot of fluids. And you should drink plenty of fluids and water, especially. And even if you don't feel thirsty, one of the things that we find in this country that too many people have is that they are dehydrated and they don't know they're dehydrated.

They look at themselves and say, I'm plump, I'm not dehydrated. And that doesn't mean that you're not dehydrated. It just means you're plump. You and I need to make sure that we are hydrated and that we have plenty of fluids. Now, food is another critical element. Although it's not as critical as water, because you can only go without water for a short period of time. And depending on the conditions you find yourself in, you can die very quickly without water. Now, you can miss a few meals, and it's not going to kill you.

Sometimes you can even go for weeks without eating, and you are able to survive. But you begin to starve, and when people are underfed, it can cause any number of problems to occur. Let me just list some of them that are listed. Irritability. You might become irritable. Well, I know a lot of people don't get enough food, and they become irritable. Low morale might be another problem. Lethargy. Physical weakness. Confusion and disorientation. Poor judgment. It weakens the immune system. And the inability to maintain body temperature, which can lead to hypothermia, heat exhaustion, or even heat stroke.

Now, we know that that can happen to a human being who goes without food. But what about spiritually? Let's look at this from the spiritual angle. Let's review it spiritually. What happens to a person who is spiritually not eating as they should? They become irritable. Meaning, they react carnally. Instead of reacting spiritually, looking at things from God's perspective, they begin to react carnally. Low morale. We call that being discouraged. It's easy to become discouraged over almost anything. Lethargy. The Bible has a term for that. It's called spiritually being lukewarm. We become lethargic in our approach. We're not on fire, not zealous. Physical weakness becomes spiritual weakness.

Spiritual weakness is manifested in ways such as lacking faith, lacking trust, and in many different areas where we lack the fruits of God's Spirit that we should have. Confusion. And becoming disoriented. Well, that happens very often. People can become confused. They forget their purpose. They forget why they're here. They begin to go in a different direction.

Poor judgment was another one. Well, the Bible is a foundation for right judgment. And so you find, then, that we can begin to lose the ability to judge correctly and to know what to do. You have a weakened immune system. Well, we then become weakened spiritually. We become susceptible to the world and its influences.

The devil is able to influence a person in their mind much more readily. And human nature begins to rear its ugly head up and begin to influence us. Because we don't have the strength to be able to resist. And then the inability to maintain the body's temperature, which can lead to hypothermia, heat exhaustion, and even heat stroke.

Well, spiritually, if we allow this condition to go on long enough, we die. We become so weakened that we give up, we quit. And how many times over the years have we seen people who just threw in the towel, gave up, and quit? Because they just couldn't go on. Well, we find that there is a purpose that God has. And let's notice in Romans 12. Romans 12, beginning in verse 1.

Romans 12, verse 1, when it comes to spiritually eating, we're told this, You see, our minds must constantly be renewed. Just like we have to be physically fed to maintain our health, our strength, our energy. So it is spiritually we have to be renewed. But the renewal takes place in the mind. There's nothing constant about a spiritual mind in the carnal body. It's got to be renewed on a daily basis. That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now we find that we are told that we should be eating the Word of God. You might remember Jesus Christ lost a few disciples back here in John 6, picking up the story in verse 48, because they didn't understand what He was saying here at all. Now they had followed Him because He had fed the 5,000, and so there was a bunch of them that kept following Him, because they thought, well, we've got a free meal here. We just listen to Him speak every once in a while, and He'll feed us, and we'll have it made. But notice what Christ said, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate man in the wilderness, and they're all dead. This is a bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. So there is a bread that we can eat of that we will live forever. The bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Now, Jesus Christ gave His life. He died for us, so that you and I could have our sins forgiven, receive God's Spirit. And it is through the Spirit of God that God is able to impart to us His very mind and nature. We know that when we eat, that food that we eat is digested, and it becomes a part of probably every cell in our body. It goes into our body to nourish and to build us up. Now, let's notice in verse 63 what Christ goes ahead and says here. It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

So the words of God become a part of us. They become a part of our thinking, and they impart to us life. And they impart to us God's Spirit, His approach. Now, in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 16, we find that it is the Word of God that gives us the spiritual power that we need. You and I need spiritual strength. So in verse 16, He says that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might and strength. Strengthened? How? With might, in other words, with power, through His Spirit, in the inner man, inside, in the spiritual man, the new man, that Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, the length, and the depth, and height, to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, and that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, that the very fullness of God might dwell within us. Now, the word here for might is the Greek word, dunamis, and it means power. So, brethren, you find that through God's Spirit, we receive the power of God. So, again, one reason we eat is to grow. Children, when they're going through what's called growth spurts, do you ever notice how much they eat? When our five boys were at home and they were going through a growth spurt, we just said they grazed and never stopped eating, they just grazed throughout the day. And they would eat breakfast, what's for lunch, eat lunch, what's for dinner, and in the meantime, they'd be eating. Because children, when they're growing, you can almost see them growing.

And I remember when I was a child, I can't think back that far, I was between the fifth grade and sixth grade. I grew five inches during the summer and increased two or three sizes and my foot size. My twin sister and I were five-three. She was always faster, could run faster and all of that. And that summer, I took off and she's still five-three. And she's very ladylike and she's a girl, but I grew during that summer. I was five-eight when I went back to school. And I could run a little faster and jump a little higher and do all of those things. Well, spiritually, brethren, there are times that we go through growth spurts.

And a lot of times when a person first comes into the church, you'll find that they begin to study God's Word. Maybe they've never heard it before. Wow! Everything is new. It's exciting. And you can just see them growing every week they come. Wow! And they learn something. Well, we grow spiritually and we go through these spurts. But do we stop eating spiritually after we're in the church for a while? Do we think, well, I've got it made. I don't need to learn anymore. I know everything that I need to know. When do we ever say I've had enough food to eat physically? I have enough water to drink physically. I'm going to stop eating and drinking. We don't do that, do we? We know that the physical is there to teach us the spiritual. Because we know we will die if we stop. And spiritually we will die if we don't eat and pray and stay close to God. So, how often do we eat? Well, I know we eat daily. Now, most of us may be, it may vary. You get older, you may only eat a couple of times a day. Some people eat three times a day, some eat five or six times a day. It just depends on a person and their metabolism. In 2 Corinthians 4, 16, 2 Corinthians 4, and verse 16, Notice, therefore we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing. So, we get older, you know, every day, a little day older. But the inward man is being renewed day by day. So spiritually we should be eating the Word of God daily. We need to be renewed on a daily basis. We need to renew the spiritual knowledge. Knowledge, you can read this Bible a hundred times. And there are sections of the Bible I've read dozens and dozens and dozens of times. And I can go back sometime and read those scriptures and just try to explain it to myself. And all at once I find, I never saw that before. I didn't know that. Because the scriptures have a depth to them. When I say a depth, it's like a glass of water. I've used this analogy before. You and I can think we understand, but maybe we have an inch of understanding of a topic. And the more we study it over the years, the more experiences we have, the more sermons we hear, the more articles we read, and we begin to put information together and stack it on each other. Ten, fifteen years down the road, your understanding may be two or three inches deep. And you still have that full glass to go. You have not yet come to the full depth of understanding of any particular scripture. So we may have knowledge, but understanding and wisdom in how to apply those scriptures. That's something we constantly grow in. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 9, Colossians 3, 9, we read this.

Now, the word renewed in the Greek means to cause to grow up, to become new, to make new, to give new strength and vigor, to be changed into a new kind of life. So you and I are being changed from the carnal life, the carnal perspective, into a new life, the spiritual life. We find back in Psalm 55 verse 16, you might just jot that down, Psalm 55, 16, that David prayed three times a day before God.

You and I need to pray as often as we need to pray to stay close to God. And whether that's three times a day, ten times a day, whatever, we need to pray. I find that there are many times that something comes to my attention, and I just stop. If I'm at home, I get down and I pray about that. I may only pray for a couple of minutes, but I focus on that particular thing. You and I may pray many times during the day to ourselves as we're going along, but we need to get down on our knees and make sure that we pray to God. We study, we pray, and we are spiritually renewed. Food in the body is converted into energy and strength. We take it into our body. We chew it in the mouth. That begins to break it down. The food mixes with the saliva, and it begins to break the food down. It goes down the passage here through the esophagus, down into the stomach, and there are little juices there that jump around and get all over it and begin to break it down even more. By the time it gets down into the intestines, it should be more of a goul or mixture. Anything that's nourishing there should be able then to be absorbed, comes into our body, and it renews us. We need our electrolytes replaced. There are all kinds of minerals, vitamins, and everything else you can think of that our bodies need. You'll find that food helps to repair the cells, fuels the body.

I think this is also comparable to what God's Spirit does to us. In Galatians 5.22, just backing up here, a few pages, Galatians 5.22, let's notice.

It says, now, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Now, the word faithfulness here comes from the Greek word pistos, which is the word for faith. It just simply means belief with the predominant attitude of trusting in. It's not just believing, but you trust in. So it is the Spirit of God that imparts faith to us. So we know that we get faith from God's Spirit.

Now, you and I have to properly chew our food in order for it to be digested more quickly, don't we? Many times we take food in our mouth, and then we go after some more. We keep swallowing and eating, and then after a while there's this big lump down here.

Well, the more we chew, we're told we should chew each mouthful 30 or 40 times. I don't know who does that. It disappears by that time. But we need to chew probably more than we do. It helps the food to break down and to digest. Food has to be digested to be used in the body. Spiritually speaking, there is a digestion process that we use.

It's called meditation, reflection. We pause. Whenever you study the Word of God, there are times that you just read the Word of God. But you and I, when we study, we need to pause. We need to think. We need to ask questions. We need how. How does this apply to me? How does it apply to the Church? How can I apply it in my daily life? We meditate on it. We chew on it.

We digest it. We break it up fine. We beat it up fine so that it becomes a part of us. And then you find that as you do that, if you stop and you think about it, there have been times that I've gotten off on a verse and I've thought, well, I'm going to study this chapter. And I go through about one verse. And for some reason, you go over here and you start studying that more.

You think about it. There are other thoughts that come into your mind. For a second, an hour has gone by and you've only gone through one verse. You think, I'll never get through this chapter if I don't speed this up. But there are times that we have to meditate and reflect and think and digest God's Word. What was the power that motivated God's servants?

If you lived in Abraham's day and you're the only one around whom God is dealing with, what motivated you? What motivated Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Noah? You all of these fellas. Hebrews 11, verse 8, let's notice what their motivation was. Hebrews 11, verse 8, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.

And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, and dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundation.

By faith Sarah, now you can go back, verse 4, by faith Abel, by faith Enoch, verse 7, by faith Noah, all of these individuals were moved to obey by faith. And here is a key principle. Obedience is faith transformed into action.

Obedience is faith transformed into action, into another form. So, if you and I have faith, we say we have faith, it has to be transformed into action. And that's called obedience. James 2 explains this. Let's notice James chapter 2, and we'll begin to read in verse 14. What does it profit my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you saved him, depart, go in peace, be warm, be filled, but you do not give them the things that are needed for the body, what does it profit?

Thus also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, well, you have faith, I have works. Give me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. If you believe there is one God, well, you do well. Even the demons believe, and they tremble. But do you want to know, oh foolish man, that faith without works is dead? So if we have faith, it will be translated into obedience, into action. Now, the Spirit of God in us, and the supply of it, is depleted when we serve other people, when we do works, when we help others, and through spiritually overcoming.

Just like hard physical work or labor can innervate us. If you've ever taken a sledgehammer and gone outside and busted rocks up and hauled them away all day long, eight hours a day, I remember doing that at Ambassador College, and we were building the stream there on campus. But I would hate to think of taking a sledgehammer today and working eight hours, and how tired, how innervated I would feel today.

Back at that time, it didn't seem to be a problem. But hard physical labor innervates us, and we know that, and then we have to be renewed by rest and by eating. Athletic exertion can wear us down. You can play basketball, you can play all kinds of sports, and if you really play hard and give everything at the end of a game, you're tired. I remember the worst I ever felt playing basketball. It was once in Chicago. We played four games in one day, and the four games weren't that bad.

It was playing on a concrete floor. If you've ever played on a concrete floor, there's no gift to concrete. And after about the two and a half games, we only had six on the team, all of us started getting leg cramps. And one would be cramped up so much he'd have to go out. And we would fill him with fluids and salt, and then the next one would be cramped, and he'd come back in.

The only thing I remember is we won all four games. So that's what mattered. But what you find is that you are just totally innervated. And that's the same thing when it comes to the spiritual realm. My wife and I have talked about it. You can run a circuit. You can speak. You can counsel. You can annoy. And at the end of the day, you feel depleted because you've given of yourself all day long. Now, I don't know about you if you've ever felt like you're spiritually, you've run out of juice, and you've given and given to where you can't really give anymore.

So we eat to renew our strength, spiritually speaking. Acts 1, verse 8. Acts chapter 1 and verse 8. You notice here that Christ said, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And what would that Holy Spirit help them to do? Well, you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So God would give them the power, the strength. The word is dunamis, to be able to do His work. Now, Jesus Christ, on one occasion, in Luke 6 and verse 17, let's notice here, Luke 6, 17. He was healing people. And I want you to notice something unusual that happened, as it says here.

Verse 17. He came down with them and stood on a level place with the proud of His disciples, and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast to Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were all healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all. So power went out from Him, or flowed out from Him.

And there were times when this happened that Jesus Christ knew that something had happened. Mark's account. Mark 5, verse 25. Notice Mark 5, another occasion here. It says, A certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and she had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse. And when she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd, and He didn't know she was around, but she touched His garment.

And He said, for she said, If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well. And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she had been healed of the affliction. And Jesus immediately, knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my clothes? Well, the disciples said, you know, everybody's pressing on you.

What do you mean, Who touched your clothes? Well, Christ felt and knew that a certain amount of power had gone out from Him, that He used up a certain amount of the spiritual power that God had given to Him. Now, Christ recognized that He had to be renewed, even though He was the Son of God. There were many times that He went out and He prayed all night. You know, He prayed. He stayed close to the Father. He asked God for help and for strength. Mr. Armstrong used to say that the Spirit of God is like water that flows into a Christian in good works and flows out.

Through good works. And it's not something that just stays there permanently. Sometimes different jobs require different amounts of energy. Right? A desk job, just sitting at a desk. Well, I can be innervating. I know I've done both. You can sit at a desk and get tired. But you're sitting there and you're not exerting yourself. You may be whipping on those keys on the keyboard, but you're not taking a wheelbarrow and digging or something of this nature versus hard work. Now, notice what happened to the disciples back in Matthew 17. In verse 14, Matthew 17-14, It says, When they had come to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son.

For he is an epileptic and suffers severely, and he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, and they could not cure him. And Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?

How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately. I wouldn't want to do this publicly. They came to him privately. He said, Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief, for assuredly I say to you that if you had faith as a mustard seed, you would say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

However, notice, qualifier, this kind of demon does not go out except by prayer and fasting. So, what he showed here, number one, he had been praying and fasting. Number two, the disciples had not been praying and fasting, not through the way they should have been. There are certain demons that you've got to really be close to God through prayer, through fasting, have that relationship so that you know that God hears. And so, as he said here, certain ones don't go out except through prayer and fasting. So, different problems sometimes require different levels of faith or being close to God.

What if you were totally innervated, physically speaking? You're just totally innervated. You don't have the strength to go. You can hardly put one foot in front of the other, and you're asked to get out and do a big job physically, and you've got to work for the next eight, sixteen hours. You just don't have the strength.

You run out of energy. Same thing is true of all of us, is it not? None of us know when we're going to be faced with a big test, a big trial. We may be coasting through life. Everything seems to be hunky-dory, no big problems, and then, wow, we're hit with a big test. And we're not close to God the way we should. We weren't expecting this big test to come along. We'd been expecting it. We'd been praying and fasting. See, the principle is you need to pray and fast always, and stay close to God.

Our faith will be tried to see how strong we are. Just go back to James chapter, or excuse me, Peter, 1 Peter 1 again. 1 Peter 1, verse 6, says, "'And this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you be grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith,' verse 7, "'be much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tested by fire.'" So our faith will be tried to see how strong we are.

Now, another important principle. In trials, our faith is translated into patience. When we go through a trial, our faith is translated into patience. You can't always tell how much endurance a person has by looking at him. Sometimes you can look at somebody, and he looks muscular and strong and dynamic. You think, well, that person could go forever, and they work for a few hours, and they just can't go anymore. And there are other people. A lot of times these are lean, thin people, and you think, well, he couldn't work.

He works for days, and just goes and goes and goes. So in looking at somebody, you can't always tell if that person has endurance. And so it is with us. You cannot look. I cannot look around this room and just look at you, or you look at me, and tell how a person is going to react in a trial. We don't always know, do we? We don't know. In the mid-90s, we had a number of members who we thought were spiritually strong and grounded.

Tess came, and we found out that they were not as strong as we thought. Others we thought didn't have any strength at all, and you're sitting here today. You see, many times, again, you may look at a person and think, well, I don't think that person really has the depth or the strength about them. And yet, when the trials came, the tests came, those who did endured, and many who didn't, didn't. You know, you've heard the expression, you are what you eat. And that is true spiritually. You are what you eat. If you go on a starvation diet, you will die, you will starve.

A starvation diet spiritually is you stop studying and you stop praying, and after a while, you will shrivel up spiritually, and things that are spiritual will have very little meaning to you. And you'll just sort of fade off or go off in a different direction. What if you eat an unbalanced diet? As a gentleman told me once that all a person needs perfect food is bananas, and all he was going to eat was bananas. I've used this before, he went bananas.

That was just his diet. Well, that would be like us only studying one topic. We have people who become historical buffs. That's all they want to study is history. Others become prophetic. They feel that all they should study is prophecy, so they get off on prophecy. Guess what? The Bible is written as a balanced book. And so there's prophecy in there, about a third of it is prophecy, a third is Christian living, a third of it is history. You study all of them, but you don't neglect any of them. And you get a balanced diet. What about being a food fanatic? There are people who are food fanatics, and all they want to do is, I said, like, just eat bananas or something of this nature.

Well, these are people who get off on little picky points. And we've seen over the years that many leave the church because they have their own little baby. They have this little picky point. The church is wrong on this. I'm right. Therefore, the church doesn't see the way I see it. I'm leaving. And they get off on a little picky point. And then there is the balanced diet. The balanced diet is to study the Bible in its proper proportions.

Christian living, prophecy, history. And we have the whole Bible to study. Matthew 4, 4, man is to live by every word of God. And so the whole Bible is there for us to study. Not just one section, but the whole Bible. What happens when you eat a poor diet? Well, your resistance is low. You can't just eat a poor diet without it finally catching up with you. You get a cold, you get the flu, you get diseases, you become sick, your resistance is low, everything that comes down the pike, you seem to catch it.

We all know that if a plant is weak, as in poor soil, insects attack it. And they start chewing on it and eating it. And insects destroy the weak, leave the strong. Well, the same is true when it comes to us. When it comes to germs and viruses and bacteria and all of the other little critters that are out there trying to make us sick.

When you're sick, a lot of times you don't want to eat. And you become weaker. And you just get weaker. When our spiritual resistance is low, trials and tests come along, they can throw us, they can throw us for a loop because we are spiritually low. Our resistance is low. Now in Ephesians 6.10, we are told, Be strong in the Lord.

You and I are to put on the full armor of God. We are to be strong in God. Ephesians 6.10. When sick, sometimes we may fast to try to eliminate the poisons, get them out of our system. When spiritually we find ourselves down, we ought to fast. We ought to draw close to God. We ought to take the time to get close to God. When spiritually weak, we need to fast, get rid of the wrong attitude, and become close to God. Notice what Paul said here, one final scripture in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 7. 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 7. You might remember he had a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan the devil, the buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.

So we find a reason why sometimes we have problems and trials and difficulties to keep us humble, so we're not exalted. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would depart from me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength, God says, my power, my strength, is made perfect in weakness. So God's strength is made mature, made perfect, made complete. How? In our weakness. When we're weak, we can be strong because we're relying upon God.

Therefore, he says, most gladly I'd rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ might rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecution, to restress us for Christ's sake, for when I'm weak, then I am strong. So he might be physically weak, but he can become spiritually strong.

So brethren, it's when we're weak that we begin to realize our own frailties. When you're weak, that's when you begin to think, oh, I need to watch my diet, I need to exercise more. And we begin to think about it, you know, I shouldn't be eating, I've been eating too much, you know, whatever it might be, too many desserts. So, you know, I need to really start watching what I eat. And we begin to become very careful about our diet. Spiritually, the same thing is true, too. When we get spiritually weak, we begin to realize, hey, I need to watch out. And so we begin to fast, we begin to pray more, we begin to study more, so that we can have more of the power of God. So when we're weak, then we can become strong, because we're relying upon God. We seldom forget to eat, do we?

When we eat, we should always be reminded that we need to eat spiritually, and we need to drink spiritually. And that's something that should always be there. We should remember that we should not forget to pray and study. Realize the purpose of prayer and study. Remember the formula. Prayer and study equals more of God's spirit, more of God's power, more of God's faith. Obedience equals faith and action. Patience is faith being tried. And so you and I need to make sure that we stay close to God. So, brethren, we eat all the time. Let's make sure that we pray and study all the time on a daily basis.