The eat-more diet

January 1, 2007

By Therese Marszalek

Like any other year, 2007 arrives with fad diet programs splashed across magazines at checkout stands. Publishers seize the timely opportunity to grab the attention of multitudes making New Year’s resolutions to improve physical health: Lose weight, exercise more. Most of the latest weight-loss crazes focus on one key: Eat less!

Have you considered a New Year’s resolution to improve your spiritual health? God’s spiritual diet program focuses on one key: Eat more! And as spiritual hunger increases, you can eat until filled to the brim, even gorging yourself if you choose.

Although we need food to nourish and sustain our physical body, the Bible says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, NIV). The Word of God — the Bible — nourishes and sustains our spiritual being.

Are you hungry? You can enjoy as many helpings as you like because God’s program encourages unlimited feasting on the Word. The goal of God’s plan is not to lose, but to gain! The more you heap your plate with His anointed nourishment, the more you will gain — in truth, revelation and wisdom.

Are you entangled in yokes of bondage? God designed His program with an answer for that too! “The yoke will be broken because you have grown so fat” (Isaiah 10:27, NIV). Or, “The yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing” (KJV). Eat the Word, and grow fat with the anointing! As you write God’s Word on the tablet of your heart and become a doer of His Word, you’ll bust out of your spiritual chains and yokes will fall to the ground.

Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” What we don’t know spiritually really can hurt us. If you follow God’s spiritual diet and fill up with the truth of His Word, you’ll avoid being led astray by wrong teachings that tantalize the flesh and tickle the ears. You must know the truth so you can recognize the counterfeit when it shows up. False teachings will only increase as the Church age comes to a close.

If we don’t provide adequate nourishment to fuel our physical body, we become weak, lethargic, physically sick, and will eventually die. If we don’t provide adequate spiritual nourishment — the Word of God — we become spiritually weak, lethargic, sick, and can eventually spiritually die. We cannot live on bread alone!

Jesus, the Bread of Life, is the Word. John 1:1,2 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (NKJV). “The Word [Jesus] became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14, NIV).

As you pass up that decadent chocolate dessert in fulfilling your New Year’s resolution to lose weight, don’t forget to give equal attention to your spiritual resolution. Eat more of the Word. Fill up on Jesus and tip the scales as you grow fat with the anointing.

Therese Marszalek lives in Spokane, Wash.