Healthy meals in a Junky World

God’s menu for our growth

In recent years, there have been calls for several quarters about the raise in obesity especially among young people. Poor eating habits, poor food choices and sedentary lifestyles, ironically fostered by technology, have been identified as major risk factors.

We can think of the Christian life in similar terms. A believer can be spiritually fit and agile. He can also be spiritually obese. Just as how, in physical terms, there are lifestyle plans and modifications that can transform an obese person to be physically fit, for the Christian, something similar can be done for his soul.

The Prophet Isaiah had a message for his day that resonates strongly with us, even today:

[1] Wait and listen, to everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing].

[2] Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy].

Isaiah 55:1-2 (AMP)

There is so much we can unpack from these two verses, however, we will engage with four crucial points.

An open general invitation.

Wait and listen, everyone who is thirsty. Come to the waters… Come, buy, and Eat.

This is the Lord’s invitation. He calls everyone to come. All who are thirsty. At first glance, we might be tempted to say that we may not be thirsty – and we may be right. The invitation of the Lord is to all who realize their thirst. If we say, we are not thirsty, could it be possible that we are simply self-conceited and have contented ourselves with water from other sources (which isn’t water)?

This is consistent with how the Lord calls men; He seemingly adds a description that streamlines the invitation, because while He calls all men, only those who acknowledge their state and need for Him honor the invitation and respond to it wholeheartedly.

The Price of Self Surrender

The Lord calls us to come and buy, to buy without money.

If the Lord isn’t offering His resources for free and isn’t accepting money for them, then what is the currency of the Lord? What is the Lord demanding in exchange? He is demanding our surrender. We pay with the surrender of our lives.

The Lord does not accept our money or material offering. His demand has always been for our lives. This is also consistent all through the Scriptures. When God shows up for men, He accepts nothing less than their total surrender. This is the price of doing business with God.

The Junks of the World

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy?

It is obvious that men need and long for that which satisfies. They want to be satisfied. When we turn our backs on that which the Lord offers, we invariably end up with junks; that which looks like bread, tastes like bread – but it is not bread. And yet it seems like men would rather spend money, squander all their earnings, searching for that which would fill and fulfil them, because they would rather do that than acknowledge that only that which God offers truly satisfies.

Yet for all these, God asks almost out of sheer amazement; “Why do you spend for that which does not satisfy?”

Nothing the world offers satisfies. Not truly. Not deeply. Not in any way that matters. This is the reason why God calls on the thirsty, why He calls on the hungry, because from His stand point, anyone not hooked up to Him for their bread and satisfaction is thirsty and hungry.

His is the bread that truly satisfies.

Delicacies of Delight

…eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness…

Eat what is good, the Lord says. What is ‘good’?

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

John 6:51 (KJV)

This is what God defines as ‘good’. That which came down from heaven, which any man eats, he shall live forever. This is how God satisfies: He gives us Himself, to the end that we eternally satisfied in Him.

[53] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.

[54] Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:53-54 (KJV)

These are the delicacies of the Lord, that which He gives us for our delight and eternal satisfaction. He gives for our thirst, His blood as wine, and for our hunger, His flesh as bread.

This is the invitation that the Lord extends to all men, to all who are hungry and thirsty. To all who acknowledge unashamedly their need for Him. To all who are dissatisfied with the Junks and false satisfaction that the world offers. He says to all men: Hearken diligently to me.

Waste no more time. The feast has been set. The invitations are out already. Consider this your invitation. Will you hearken?