Monday, August 29, 2011

Filled to The Brim

God is looking for F.A.T. disciples, disciples that are faithful, available, and teachable. We can’t teach others what we don’t know ourselves.   Anonymous   

When I look at myself in a mirror I can instantly say that God has Himself a “fat” disciple. The extra chin on my face shows it, the spare tire around my belly displays it, and the wing expansion in my upper arms verifies it. Yep, I’m a fat Christian. Nice try, Karen but that isn’t what we are talking about here.


What we are talking about here is the opposite of a being a physically fat person. It takes looking at something more reflective than a mirror and that is the image of Christ. Only when we look intensely at Jesus and the example He set for us to follow can we truly find out if we are as faithful as we need to be, available as we ought to be, as well as teachable?


We can lie about our weight all we want but it still shows. Years ago when I renewed my driver’s license the lady at DMV asked me if everything on my license was current. “Well of course,” I told her. I hadn’t moved so everything was the same as before. Looking one more time at my license then looking up at me she said, “What about the weight?” Okay maybe that part had changed. It was obvious I wasn’t the skinny girl I once was. To me I couldn’t see what it mattered to her if I was accurate to the pound on my weight or not. It really didn’t matter, that wasn’t the point. The point was the fact that it showed.

We can lie all we want about whether or not we are all we should be for God but eventually the truth will show. The first person we need to be honest with is ourselves. Can we honestly say our hearts reflect it, our actions verify it, and our attitudes display it?


It may not have mattered to the DMV lady but it matters to God if we are being the F.A.T. disciples we should be. God needs us to be faithful so He can count on us thru the thick and thin of life. He requires us to be available. What good is a disciple if they are never available to do the work they were given to do. Last but not least God needs us to be teachable. Too often we think we know it all and therefore we don’t need to listen to what others have to say including God. We need to be able to learn. Learn new things, learn from our mistakes, and gain a knowledge that can be passed along to the next generation.


If you think about it if we would consume spiritual food like we do physical food we would be the F.A.T. disciples the Lord is looking for. We can always manage to find a way to eat when we are hungry and even when we aren’t hungry but we don’t do that with our spiritual food. We set aside some quiet time for the Lord and reading the Bible but soon it gets crowded out of the refrigerator of our lives and we wind up eating off the junk food things of life we don’t need.


Although very few people make it their goal in life to be physically overweight we need to make it our goal to be plump for Jesus. People who intentionally fill themselves up on the spiritual food found in God’s word in order to be the Faithful, Available, Teachable disciples we ought to be. Disciples, who are filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit, filled to the rim with good spiritual eating.

Happy Spiritual Eating!



© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

4 comments:

Tami said...

Although very few people make it their goal in life to be physically overweight we need to make it our goal to be plump for Jesus.

Love it. Thanks for hosting.

Debbie Petras said...

I love when you wrote:
"If you think about it if we would consume spiritual food like we do physical food we would be the F.A.T. disciples the Lord is looking for."

I enjoyed writing on this quote; much food for thought. Thanks for hosting Karen.

blessings and love,
Debbie

Vintage Whimsy Studio said...

Good morning Karen! This was a fun quote and quite thought provoking. It reminded me of all the years of wondering when God was going to give me the opportunity to "serve" Him and then I finally discovered that I had been "doing" ministry in my home for many years! Different stages of life present different and new opportunities to serve our Lord. Thank you for hosting this week. Nina @ mamas*little*treasures

LivingforGod said...

I enjoyed reading your post. I love feeding on God's Word :).

Have a blessed week in the Lord!