You'll Ruin Your Dinner

How many of you can remember back to when you were younger and it was almost time for dinner.  You would be famished.  Mom, or Dad in some cases, was preparing your meal.  It smelled so good you thought you would pass out if it didn't get ready soon. 
You would come into the kitchen and start rummaging through the cupboards for something, anything to eat.  At last you spotted it.  There on the back of the second shelf from the top, behind the green beans and two cans of creamed corn, was the bag of Oreos.  You climb up on the cabinet while your mom isn't looking and you are just about to reach it when your mom says, without ever turning around, "Do not eat any of those cookies.  It will ruin your dinner."
"But I am starving," you cry, grabbing your middle to show how wasted away you are.  And the battle is on.  You are told that dinner will be ready in half an hour and you explain that if you don't eat something soon you won't be alive in half an hour.  Back and forth you go until your mom just wants you out of the kitchen so you grab the cookies and run with her yelling behind you, "Don't fill up on those cookies.  You'll ruin your dinner."
And so it goes.  You told your children the same thing and now they are telling their children the same thing.  Yet just like you they grab the cookies, candy, a piece of bread or even a piece of fruit and devour it before you can stop them.  And ultimately when it is actually dinner time, the table is set and the food is finally on the table, what is it that is always said?  "I'm not very hungry now.  I just ate that (you fill in the blank.)
Your mom wants to kill you, just like you wanted to kill your kids and they want to kill theirs.  You spent a good deal of time preparing that food.  You had warned them not to fill up on the junk food because it would have the dire consequences that are now unfolding. 
They are no longer hungry for the good food that you have set before them, they satisfied their hunger with whatever they could get their hands on.  It was of no care to them that the food they had eaten had no caloric virtue in it whatsoever.  No health benefits.  It had satisfied their hunger but not their actual need for good, healthy food.
How many of you have went on a diet before?  How many of you like myself have decided that rather than plan good nutritious food you would buy either pre-planned foods or frozen dinners that had just the amount of calories that you were allowed for that particular meal.  The amount of food that was in there would not satisfy a two year old, much less the appetite of a grown person.
You could have just as easily done some homework and realized that you could make better tasting more nutritionally sound food and get full eating it rather than buying and eating the cardboard tasting frozen dinners.  But for conveniences sake you chose not to do that and you continue to eat the garbage that is put in front of you.  You settle for second best.  Oh you might see results after a while but they are not lasing results.  Because sooner or later you get tired of eating the cardboard food and start eating everything in sight and nutrition be hanged.  Now you want everything and nothing satisfies.
I have been on plenty of diets before and the one thing that I have found to be so true is that the more I get used to eating healthy foods the more my body craves it.  The more water I drink, the more I desire only water to drink.  Nothing else satisfies or quenches the thirst.  But then after a while you go out to eat with a friend or someone and you order a cheeseburger.  You had forgotten how good they taste.  How that cheese oozing off of the side of the burger and the pickles and tomatoes popping out just from under the bun looked.  You take that first bite and you are hooked.  You ruined your dinner.  You have tasted something that will substitute for the good healthy food that you have been getting used to and then you start to crave it.  Before you know it the pounds start to creep back on.  You realize you ruined your dinner.
So now I ask you, how is your spiritual appetite?  What are you feeding yourself lately?
So many times we feed our spiritual self in the same manner that we feed our physical bodies.  God has a feast prepared for us and we fill up on the junk the world has to offer.  When we finally do open the Word of God we only read it for a few minutes and then we put it down.  We have spent our appetite on other things.  Things that cannot satisfy.  Things the world has to offer.  Things that take our time and very little effort. 
By the end of the day we are so full of the things of the world that we barely have time to come and feast at the Lords table if at all. 
He calls to us just like He did the disciples, "Come and dine."  He says "Look and see all the wonderful things I have set before you.  I have a bowl full of peace that you can eat out of.  A platter of joy.  There is a helping of healing for you if you want it.  I was even going to give you some mercy and grace for dessert.  Aw...and to drink, a large glass of refreshing water, once you have tasted it you will never thirst again."
"Oh Lord," you tell Him, "I ate on my way home.  Maybe another time."  One of your friends had offered you a dose of "Let's go out and celebrate how awesome you are," and you had eaten it up.  Someone earlier that day had given you a book about Spirits and Angels and you had practically devoured most of it on your break.  You couldn't wait to find out more about what it said about Angels.  You had always wanted to know more about them and now someone has written a book on it.  You were just getting a dose of a TV show on how to find your inner self in 6 easy steps.  If you try hard enough you might be able to succeed in about a year or two, but only if you stick to it. 
Your spirit man was full.  No room for even an appetizer.  Not even the crumbs that fall from the Masters table for you.
But even after you fill yourself with these other things it leaves you unsatisfied. It is a substitute for the good things that you should be filling yourself with.
We have ruined our dinner.  We have allowed the world to fill us up instead of hungering after the Word of God and the things that He has to offer.
In Mathew Jesus told us what we are to yearn for, to desire.  He said "Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, they will be filled."
We are becoming weaker and sicker.  We are not able to withstand the things that are coming against us.  We are not strong enough to stand against the attacks of Satan. 
We think if we take a batch of vitamins that it is a good substitute for the good things that we should be filling up on.
Just like we think if we go to church on Sunday morning that we have gotten all we need from the Lord.  That that is all He has to offer us.  It is our dose of vitamins in place of feasting at His table.
When my daughter was about a year and a half old she was not a good eater.  We would make her meals and tell her it was time to eat and she would say "But I ate yesterday."  It was a hard thing to convince her that she had to eat every day.  But we are perfectly satisfied to only get fed once a week on a Sunday morning, if we even make it to that meal.  But we are to feast on His word daily.  We are to spend time with Him daily.  We are to hunger and thirst after righteousness.  But because we continue to eat out of the garbage can of the world we have truly ruined our dinner.