SPIRITUAL FOOD

                In the book of I Sam. 14:24 we find that Saul, the king of Israel at the time, was in pursuit of the Philistines and he places his soldiers in what would become a very foolish oath.  I Sam. 14:24 says, “And the men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had placed the people under oath saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.’ So none of the people tasted food.”  The result of this oath led to Saul’s army of people becoming faint or weak. In verse 28 the people speak with Jonathan, Saul’s son, saying, “Then one of the people said, ‘Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, saying, Cursed is the man who eats food this day.’ And the people were faint.”  But Jonathan, not knowing his father’s oath, had eaten honey in verse 27 and the verse says, “his countenance brightened.”  Notice Jonathan’s response to the people in verse 29-30, “But Jonathan said, ‘My father has troubled the land. Look now, how my countenance has brightened because I tasted a little of this honey.” (30) ‘How much better if the people had eaten freely of the spoil of their enemies which they found! For now would there not have been a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?’”.  Saul’s army was physically weak and depleted because they had not been allowed to eat and provide nutrients to their bodies.  We know that proper nutrients for the physical body to function as it becomes weak.  Food is essential to the body. 

          Much like our physical bodies, our spiritual bodies also require proper sustenance and nutrition.  Not physically but with spiritual food, “soul food”, some have called it  I Pet. 2:2 says, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” Our spiritual growth and strength is dependent on us feeding ourselves from the word of God.  In I Cor. 3 Paul admonishes the believers there because of their lack of growth.  I Cor. 3:1-3 says, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. (2) I have fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; (3) for you are still carnal.  For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?”  Those believers in Corinth who Paul was addressing had not spiritually grown but were behaving just like the rest of the world.  As Christians, we are to be set apart for service to God.  This idea of being set apart for the purpose of serving God requires us to study daily the word of God and follow the teachings of Christ and the apostles found in the New Testament.  In John 17:17 as Jesus is praying for His, He asks the father, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”  If we are to serve God the way He commands us to we must also be set apart or sanctified.  That comes from a knowledge of the truth that is God’s word.  That requires us to feed upon His word on a regular basis.  If not, then like Saul’s army, we deprive ourselves of the proper nutrition and become spiritually weak and susceptible to Satan’s ways that lead to sin and separation from God.  In John 6:63 Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who give life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”  Our spiritual health, our spiritual lives are dependent on the nutrition we receive from the word of God.  We must take time to feed and strengthen ourselves for the spiritual battle we must fight everyday. 

-  Garrett Alsip