Take My Hand Inspirations
Fruit of the Spirit Series
Intro: Like a Tree Planted . . .That Brings Forth its Fruit
Jesus
spoke these to me and told me to share them with all of you:
Every soul is important to Me.
I cried for you. I died for
you. In death, your soul comes to live
with Me in the place I have prepared for you.
Decide now where you want to live for eternity. Yes, there is life after death. And I am not willing that any should perish.
African-American,
or Black people, living in the southern parts of the United States have a
tradition of calling their food “soul food”.
Food that’s so delicious and rich, it makes the soul feel good. Father Isaac,
a blind old man at that time, requested from his elder twin son Esau, “And make me a savory [rich and delicious] food, such as
I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I
die (Genesis27:4).”
Good
eating is soul satisfying.
Though
it is the physical body that benefits from the necessary balance of nutrients
provided in the food we eat, being satisfied in the stomach is directly related
to being satisfied, or satiated, in the soul.
Hence that traditional adage: “The way to a man’s heart is through his
stomach.” As described in Blog #5 entitled The
Alignment of Body, Soul, Spirit, the heart is the seat of the
soul. The soul can be expressed as your
thoughts and feelings.
And,
after devouring his delicious well spiced meal, Father Isaac, in a highly happy
and satisfied state, closed his eyes and poured out all the blessings he had from
his satiated soul onto his son—before the Lord.
Remember,
all three of your being—body, soul and spirit—are tied together so tightly,
that if one is not fed well, or not at all, the other two will surely fall
sick. Simply put, when we eat well, we
feel good, right, balanced, aligned, and ready for anything. Our physical, earthly part is in good
condition.
Now,
moving on to your real ‘soul food’, requires us to be reminded that our soul is
comprised (made up) of the thoughts we create or adopt and keep in our mind’s
memory storage, which is attached to our heart—and, thus, our feelings. What is created in your mind is what has been
built up in you by all the choices/decisions you’ve made throughout your entire
life—whether right or wrong, good or bad.
They’re all mixed together forming your “world” as you see it. That’s why it’s so important to "eat" what will
make your mind choose what is right in God’s eyes, being led by the Spirit of
God and not of Beelzebub (satan).
So
let’s digest our ‘soul food’, shall we?
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever
things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report,
if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate
on these things . . . and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9).
Wow! All these things, wrapped up in a nutshell,
mean to keep our thoughts on what is good and right and sincere and pleasant,
just like the thoughts of a two-year child laughing and caring for nothing
except to be loved and hugged. Proverbs
23:7a reiterates that: for as he thinks in his heart, so is he. So, then, whatever you feed your mind is what
is surely going to be projected or reflected in your “world”.
Some
of us force to enjoy a perfect and quiet world where we can freely meditate on
what’s happening around us in a tranquil environment of lovely music playing or
intensely drawing or creatively writing.
Others are drama kings and queens always luring the attention of weak
minds into their wild story-lines (either plotting good or propagating
evil). Society is their audience; and
they feed off its environment of sounds (shouts, screams, tears, cheers, all
kinds of words haphazardly fluttering through the air). Then there are the rest of us who are caught
in the middle of both extremes.
But
we all have one thing in common.
Becoming a Christian made us “born-again”. In other words, we all got a soul-change—a change
from a worldly point of view to a renewal of a godly (holy) point of view. We “see” things differently now than where we
were before because now we are a new
creation: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have
passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17).
But
memories of our old creature (of who we were before accepting Jesus as our Lord
and Saviour) still remain. I asked God: Why, Father, didn’t you take away our past
memories and allow us to start afresh, all over again, like new-born babes in
our re-born souls? He replied: My
child, some of your memories were good and drew you nearer to Me. Other memories were awful and made you come
running to Me. All your memories have shaped who you are today. All memories
have valuable lessons in them. As a new
creation, you must keep the lessons you’ve learned in your memories to help bring
other lost and suffering souls to Me.
Ain’t
that deep? Tell yourself: “As a new
re-born soul, I MUST CHANGE in the way I think and feel.” In our flesh, we operated in the works of the
flesh: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, outbursts
of wrath, selfishness, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness,
revelries, and the like (Galatians 5:19-21).
Simply put, we were addicted to sex, money, gods,
jealousy, gossiping, drinking, smoking, shooting, snorting and partying—all to
please “me”, the you that was driven by the need to make the flesh, the body,
and hence the ego (the “I” conscience) feel good. What spirit drives our flesh in this way? Definitely not the Holy Spirit.
Being
born-again changes your choices/decisions from allowing the demonic spirit to
drive your flesh to begging the Holy Spirit to drive your body and your soul
into what is pleasing to God who gives us peace—that balance, that alignment we
need to be the best we can be.
The
devil can never make us put our attention on things that are true, noble, just,
pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous or praiseworthy. Only the Holy Spirit can: And
do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God (Romans 12:2).
What
is true is that you are a wonderful and perfect creation of Almighty
God. What is noble are the
talents and gifts you have in you to make this world a better place. You can be the giver of justice in your
world: helping others to choose what is right; and rejecting what is bad.
Purity
starts when you are born-again and live a holy life free of unlawful sex or worshiping idols including gods, money, technological toys; and not allowing
your body and mind to be polluted by the dirtiness (more like diabolical
filthiness) of the other world you once
lived in.
What is lovely now is
the smile you share with others who are hurting. And your tongue speaks what is of a good
report about others, even your ‘enemies’.
You cover the offenses of those who hurt you by constantly forgiving them
instead of retaliating; and that’s what is virtuous about you. And you praise God for all the good
things He is doing in your life as you now witness to the lost and suffering
with songs, words of encouragement, and helping hands.
Now that’s
good ‘soul food’ eating!
Once
we’ve banqueted on our ‘soul food’, let’s not forget that these are the seeds
planted in us which are to grow with the watering of God’s Word, the Bible,
into God’s food—the Fruit of the Spirit.
© 2017 by Take My Hand Inspirations, a
division of PepParadise Society Ltd Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written
permission of the publisher. The only
exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture
quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas
Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
Most of the Artwork selected is
retrieved from “Black Art” search engine.
Take My Hand Inspirations
No comments:
Post a Comment