[Kelli]

Feeding the Spirit = Lean Body, Fat Spirit


Day ______________________________ Date _______________________________


In this study, you will see why trusting God (even when it seems like you are not getting what you want) produces contentment; however, lusting after what you think will make you happy will produce leanness of soul.

If you lose weight for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way, it won’t make you happy. You may be skinny, but your soul will be lean. Your weight and your diet will always be at the front of your mind. You will still be obsessed with how many calories you’re eating and how much you weigh. Don’t think that when you reach your weight goal that your weight-thoughts and obsession with dieting stop. No, you will still continue to dwell in unhappiness, because you’ll be worrying that you’re going to gain it back. It’s still going to be hard to resist the food.

Why do you think that many of the patients who undergo bariatric surgery gain their weight back? __________________________________________________ _______

__________________________________________________ ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

It is because they haven’t addressed the issues of why they became overweight in the first place. Do it God’s way and have a fat soul. Feeding on Jesus means that you’re feeding on spiritual food. When you take food into your body, it makes the muscles and tissues grow. The food becomes a part of you.

Once you became a Christian, your spirit gained control of your body. Satan will try to convince you otherwise. However, God, the God who made Heaven and earth, has pronounced that you are a new creation! Your body is what houses the most important thing about you. Your body is wonderful and amazing. It mystifies the most brilliant and educated; each cell of your heart can beat on its own! No one can tell you why it perpetually beats, and yet it does. But as amazing as the body is, it is not the most important thing about “YOU”. It is just the tent for your spirit, which is the everlasting part of you.

Your body/flesh is only special because it’s perfectly suited to grow your spirit. To become truly committed to God, your spirit has to grow and your body/flesh has to shrink. Your body/flesh is what Satan tries to control; that is his vehicle. Your spirit is what wants and desires to follow God, so pray for your spirit. The stronger that your spirit is, the weaker your flesh will become.
What happens when you try and try, and you still can’t stop eating and gaining weight? God wants you to be thin and healthy, but more than that, He desires a relationship with your spirit. He wants your spirit to be fat and healthy, and your spirit is fed by “every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” Man shall not live by bread alone.


Deuteronomy 8:3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.


Matthew 4:4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”


In our last study, we learned that complaining and murmuring produce a lean spirit. What do you think makes a fat spirit? _____________________________________

__________________________________________________ __________________

__________________________________________________ __________________

You get a fat spirit by praising God and thanking Him and spending time with Him! Look back on all of the wonderful things that He has done for you. Where would you be without Him? I want to praise God so much that the angels need a crane to lift my fat spirit to Heaven!

Why do you think that God requires that we praise Him? ______________________

__________________________________________________ __________________

__________________________________________________ __________________

I am very embarrassed and in awe that God didn’t just strike me with lightning, but there was a time in my life when I thought that God was a tad bit narcissistic, requiring that we praise Him. I know that’s horrible after all that He has done, and is still doing, for me. I was so selfish; I tried to stuff the feelings by telling myself, “What human king in history died for his people? They all required that the people lay down their lives for them.” I couldn’t praise God with my whole heart without Satan bringing that up. But God, being as sweet as He is, knew that this was a stumbling-block for me.

One day, God unexpectedly told me that the praise wasn’t for His benefit. He knows that He is the Almighty God; the praise is for our benefit. It is positive affirmation of His power, it increases our faith, and it is positive thinking about God. He doesn’t need our praise we need to praise Him!
John 11:41, 42 (NIV) So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”


God didn’t need Jesus to look up and thank Him, because Jesus is God; He said it for the benefit of the people standing around.

So how do we grow the spirit and shrink the flesh? How do you grow any living thing? There is no way that living things will grow without food and water. What is the food or nourishment for the spirit? _______________________________________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________



READ: Matthew 4:3, 4 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”


Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, when you woke up tomorrow morning, your first thought wasn’t about food or your weight? Do you think that if you lost all your excess weight, and were at your goal-weight, you wouldn’t think about food and dieting anymore?
___________

Describe your thoughts and feelings about your answer. ________________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

Let’s say that you lose all of your extra weight; then what? If you’re like I was, your thoughts have been filled with dieting and losing weight for a long time. I really didn’t know what would fill my thoughts if I didn’t have the anxiety that I have always had about my weight. I realized that if I didn’t get rid of the obsession with being thin, though, I would replace the getting-skinny obsession with the staying-skinny obsession. I knew that my thoughts would still be absorbed with food, fat, calories, etc. Those thoughts made me tired and unhappy, and I really didn’t want them anymore. I realized that being thin would not make me content; I knew that I would still yearn for food, and I really didn’t want that. So how did I replace those thoughts?


Matthew 6:25
Do Not Worry

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?


This passage isn’t necessarily saying that God will always have you dressed to the nines; it’s saying that, no matter what you wear, you body is what is valuable and not the clothes you wear. You wear the clothes, the clothes don’t wear you; just like you wear your body and it doesn’t wear you. Life is more than food. It doesn’t matter what the food is, because that’s not what makes your life. The old adage that says, “You are what you eat” is not correct. Everything is good to eat as long as you thank God for it and ask His blessing over it.



The Bible uses the words “bread” and “food” symbolically; Jesus called Himself “the bread from heaven” (John 6:32), “the bread of God” (John 6:33), and “the living bread which came down from heaven” (John 6:51).

Jesus was referring to the Exodus, when manna fell miraculously from Heaven to sustain God’s people. Jesus referred to Himself as the heavenly Manna, the supernatural and spiritual food given by God to those who believe.

Manna was a visible reminder of God’s care for them; it could be baked, boiled, ground, and beaten. It could be cooked in pans and made into cakes. However, it seems that God’s care was not quite enough for the Israelites, because the people started to complain.


When we murmur and complain, we are saying that He is not enough.


Matthew 4:4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”


Luke 12:22-24 Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. 23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?



John 4:1-34
A Samaritan Woman Meets Her Messiah

Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.

5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father is spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

The Whitened Harvest

27 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”

28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 29 “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 Then they went out of the city and came to Him.

31 In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”

33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”

34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.


What “food” was Jesus talking about in verses 32 and 34? ____________________

__________________________________________________ __________________

__________________________________________________ __________________

__________________________________________________ __________________

Jesus had just finished counseling the woman at the well, and He said, “I have food of which you do not know.” His food was to do the ministry that God had planned for Him to do.

What task has God set for your life? _______________________________________

What do you think your spiritual food is? ___________________________________

We have all been given gifts and talents that God wants us to use to further His Kingdom, and to help others find and develop a relationship with Him. If you don’t know what your mission in life is, don’t worry; God will make it clear to you in His time. Your job is to seek out what that assignment is. Instead of worrying about calories, weight, food, etc … get out there and figure out what God wants you to do. If you already know your part in the body (Romans 12:4-6), then get busy doing it! Fill your heart and mind with it. Capture all the thoughts of weight, dieting, and food, and replace them with the task at hand. Finding and doing your job is the only, and I mean ONLY, thing in life that will fulfill you. Satan uses the whole cycle of addiction that we learned about earlier; the fail, guilt, find a new diet, have a measure of success, then fail again cycle. He just wants to distract us from our mission.


John 6:55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.



Acts 14:17 “Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”


Jesus says so many times in His Word that He is the Bread, and doing God’s work is the spiritual food. Figuratively, Jesus is heavenly Manna, the Spiritual food that is given to those who ask, seek, and knock. You are not on your own; quit worrying about what you look like, and get busy.


1 Corinthians 6:20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.





John 6:27-36 “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

30 Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe.”


To sum up this study, we need to stop complaining about our lives and get busy doing what God has planned for us.


Matthew 7:9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?


Trust God!


READ: Matthew 6:24-34


In light of today’s study, what was the Scripture or statement in today’s lesson that most spoke to your heart? __________________________________________________ __

__________________________________________________ ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

What steps of faith does God want you to take towards Him today? ______________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________
Rephrase the Scripture or statement into an expression of faith ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________

__________________________________________________ ___________________