Soul Food

Spiritual disciplines have no inherent saving power.  As we remember Jesus' encounters with the Pharisees, practicing spiritual discipline is no guarantee of spirituality.  What they appeared to be was no indication of the condition of the heart.  It is no different with us.  Spiritual disciplines shape us.  The Holy Spirit uses them to  make us into the image of Christ.  Of course, the image He seeks to create in us is the one which resembles the heart and the spirit of Christ.  What He desires to do in us is to enable us to respond spontaneously in a Christ like spirit to the situations with which we are confronted.

 

Galatians 5:23 says, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control."  Who among us would not choose to live with these things being expressed in our living?  Sometimes we have started the day deciding that throughout the day we will live as one who models the list in this passage of Scripture.  It does not take long to realize that it is not going to happen.  These things do not come forth naturally and spontaneously from our life.  But, then, they were not meant to be.  They are after all, not the results of human determination, but the fruit of the Holy Spirit abiding in us.

 

What we cannot do for ourselves,  the Holy Spirit can do as we open ourselves up to the nurturing and shaping power of spiritual disciplines.  Spiritual disciplines are an important part of the process of being made into the image of the Christ.  As the Spirit of Jesus grows in us, takes a greater hold of our heart, so does our response begin to resemble the response He would make were He standing midst the circumstances of our life.  As meat and vegetables are food for the body, so are spiritual disciplines food for the soul and spirit.