June 13

“It would never do for the health of our bodies to be careful of our food on Sundays only, paying no regard to what we eat the rest of the week.  Similarly, it is idiotic to expect our souls to thrive if they are provided with suitable food on Sundays alone and are left to feed on ashes throughout the other days of the week.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 6/13

Hannah says it’s not that we think about Christ every second of the day, which would not only be impossible but ill-advised, but that “it must be the thought Christ would think were He placed in our circumstances”.  This reminds me of the “Jesus glasses” I felt I needed years ago when I was first learning about the Christ-centered life. I felt if I could see things the way He saw them I could then act like Him.  I wish it were so simple.  My Jesus glasses didn’t allow for my willfulness.  That’s why we must “feed on Jesus”.  We must nourish our whole selves with the Bread of Life and in doing so be transformed into people that God can work through.  Just like we must eat healthy food and care for our bodies in other ways, we must feed our spiritual body with that which is of God.  Going to the world for our needs is like eating junk food.  It may fill us up and satisfy us for the moment, but it doesn’t nourish us.  In order to become who God created us to be we must be fed by Him.

“And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’  And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.  And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”  Mark 14:22-24