Do You Eat Well Spiritually?

Food for Spiritual Growth

Food and Nutrition, a textbook  that discusses the importance of having a proper diet, gives us three good reasons for eating well. One is  that we need food "to promote growth and to make good the wear and tear on body cells." Did you know  that each day of your life, a trillion of your body cells are broken down and need to be replaced?  Proper growth and body maintenance require good food. 

That is also true spiritually. When the apostle Paul wrote to the congregation  in Ephesus, for example, he emphasized how each Christian needs good spiritual food to become "a full-grown man." (Ephesians 4:11-13)  When we feed ourselves properly on nourishing spiritual food, we are no longer like weak babies, unable to fend for ourselves, falling prey  to all kinds of dangers.  (Ephesians 4:14) Rather,m we grow into  strong adults, able to put up a hard fight for the faith because we are "nourished with the words of  the faith." -1 Timothy 4:6. 

Is that true of you? Have you grown up spiritually?  Or are you still like a spiritual babe-vulnerable, totally dependent on others, and unable to take on full Christian responsibilities?  Understandably, few of us would readily say that we are  spiritually  like a babe, but frank self-examination is in order .  Some anointed Christians were like that in the first century.  Although they should have been "teachers" themselves, able and willing to teach others what God's Word says, the apostle Paul wrote:  "You again need someone to teach you from the beginning the elementary things of the sacred pronouncements of God;  and you have become  such as need milk, not solid food."  If you want to grow up spiritually, cultivate an appetite for good, solid spiritual food.  Do not be content with spiritual baby food! -Hebrews 5:12. 

We also need this solid spiritual food to repair any damage done by daily trials that we face in this hostile world. These can sap our spiritual strength.  But God can renew that strength.  Paul said:  " We do not give up, but even is the man we are outside is wasting away, certainly the man we are inside is being renewed from day to day." (2 Corinthians 4:16)  How are we  "renewed from day to day"?  In part, by regularly feeding on God's Word through personal and group study of the Scriptures and Bible-based publications.  

Next time: Do Your Eat Well Spiritually? -Food for Spiritual Energy

From the Watchtower magazine, 1997