Feeding or Teaching?
After Jesus death and resurrection, He asks Peter three times if Peter loved Him. Of course Peter says yes that He did love Jesus. Jesus replied to him three times, feed My sheep, feed My lambs, John 21:15-17. As the true Shepherd, Jesus was concerned for the care of His sheep and lambs. Jesus was entrusting to Peter and His disciples that they provide food and drink to His sheep, which in reality are His people whom He had redeemed.
In the Old Testament, the people of God were all considered shepherds. Shepherds are those who take care of the sheep leading them to green pastures and still waters as we read about in Psalms 23:2. Green pastures and still waters are a direct refferrence to food and drink for the nourshment of the sheep.
Feeding is always inward. The taking of food within is for our nourishment, for our life, and growth. Teaching is outside of us and enters into us through our ears. We listen to a sermon by a teacher, minister or priest never knowing if what they are saying is based on what is true or twisted unless we check it out.
Job 38:2, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “who is this that darkened council with words without knowledge.”
Job’s three friends were there to comfort him, but instead they were accusing him and that his trials were because he must have sinned.
The Lord Himself enters and Ministers to Job and in the end Job says:
Job 42:5, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee.” 6, “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
It was after the Lord ministered to Job that he acknowledged that “now my eye seeth Thee,” before that, he only knew of God through other’s teaching.
Ever wonder why there are so many different denominations? Its important to note how churchs are set up today. Usually the members of a church enter into a building or other and sit. They listen to one or two speakers, feel encouraged and then leave. Most take in knowledge through others speaking. God has given us His instruction Book and too many pastors or ministers don’t believe it is the word God. It is filled with too many fables. So they say.
No Room For the Infant Jesus
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem there was no room for Him in the Inn, Luke 2:7. An inn can be a house or a residence so His Mother laid Him in a manger. What can we see with this statement? Many Christians have a love for God and Jesus but the same condition exist today as at the time of His birth, they have no room for Jesus.
Why? Because all men are of the similitude of Adam, who is our old man, unless we are a called out people as Abraham was called, compare Romans 5:14 with Genesis 12:1. When Adam sinned, we, as his offspring, were filled with the transgregression of Adam, the serpentine nature. He took, as his food, the Tree of Good and Evil and he ate aquireing the Satanic nature, Genesis 3:12. This nature is our life, our natural life or soulish life and it is this life that needs to be brought to the cross, if we are to be overcommers. That is the nature we inherited through Adam who aquired this nature from Satan who represented the Tree of good and evil. We were born sin and this sin is our natural life. Its true that Jesus gave His life as a ransom for our sins, that is, the sins we have committed, not the sin nature which we have inhrited from Adam who joined himself to the wrong tree in the Garden, which we have inherited as our natural life and nature. Jesus carried His cross and He expects us to bear our cross.
. Matthew 10:38, “And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me. 39, He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.”
We were all born into this world with a natural life inherited from Adam who in turn ate of the tree God said not to eat from. We are carnal minded soulish people. This nature is natural to us and needs to be eliminated. If we are satisfied with our selves and our natural life, as Jesus said, “We are not worthy of Him”. On the other hand, if we dislike our natural life as we find in Galatians 5:19-21, it will be replaced with the divine Nature with the help of the Holy Spirit.
The Outer and inner Man
2nd Corinthians 4:16, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day”.
The outward man is our old nature inherited from Adam and the inward man is Christ being formed within us,
Galatians 4:19, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”
The outward man is referred to in Ephesians 4:22 as the old man which is corrupt with deceitful lusts.
Ephesians 4:24, “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holliness.”
All men are created with a body soul and spirit, 1st Thessalonians 5:23. We are able to see the body with our eyes. Our soul is hidden within our body and is filled with worldly knowledge, wisdom, and the traditions of men. Our soul needs to be emptied and filled with Godly knowledge and understanding which will only occur with the quickening Spirit of Christ. This emptying and filling takes time and can’t be forced.
When Adam sinned, the spirit within him became deadened. All those who respond to God’s calling have the deadened spirit within them quickened and made alive because of a new life in Christ, Romans 8:11; 1st Corinthians 15:45.
We are vessels to be emptied of our natural life and to be fiilled with God’s nature, 2nd Corinthians 4:7. This is what happened to Job, God emptied Jobs natural life and filled him inwardly with His Divine life. And He used Satan to accomplish Job’s experience. Satan is not heard of again after the Lord ministered to Job.
Eating Christ
2nd Corinthians 4:7 say that we are earthen vessels, because we are created from the earth and we have this treasure, Christ’s Spirit mingled within our spirit, John 15:5. This word abiding is the mingling of God, Who is Spirit, mingling with the spirit within us.
Matthew 4:4, But He answered and said, “It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
John 1:14 tell us that the word was made flesh, and in Revelation 19:13 tells us that His name is called the Word of God. This is our food. Christ, the Word of God, is Who we are to feed on.
During the wanderings of the Nation of Israel, God had always provided food for them. In Egypt they had the Lamb, in the wilderness they had the manna and water from the Rock. When they entered the promised land the Manna stopped and they had to labor on the land which was rich with every kind of food as well as water and minerals. This was their work as well as our work. They had the land which is Christ and they had the seed which is also Christ.
2nd Timinothy 2:15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
In bringing a new born child into the world, how does he grow? He grows by feeding, not by good behavior or teaching but by feeding.
Its the same way with God’s people, some are able to teach or be a guide but no one will be able to grow without feeding themselves. I can’t take in food for someone else. The thing I am able to do is share what God has reveiled to me and pass it along to someone else if they are interested.
Why Do We Need To Grow Christ?
The conclusion of the gospel is that no matter how great you think you are, how kind or loving you are, you might have all knowledge and suffering, without Christ you are as nothing. Why?
Colossians 1:15, (Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ) “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16, For by Him all things were created, that are in the heaven and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things are created by Him and for Him: 17, And He is before all things and by all things consist. 18, And He is the head of the body, the church: Who is the beginning, the first born from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.
Jesus became God’s Christ and He is the only offering that will be accepted by our Father. You are in Him as the new man or your still in the old man. God has given us free will to make our choice.