March 2, 2023

Spiritual Strength

 “Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But He said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So, the disciples were saying to one another, No one brought Him anything to eat, did he? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” John 4:31-34 (NASB)

At times, Christians can get mentally tired. Mental tiring makes us feel physically tired too. Most of us we think we are doing pretty well each day, but somehow, we tire. We serve God too, but it takes a lot out of us some days. We think we are, “doing the will of Him who sent Me.” We spend time with God. We spend time in prayer. We serve our church. We do all the things we have been taught as Christians. Sometimes though, it seems we are spread too thin. This leads to burnout if we don’t address it. So, how do we identify burnout? What could we do to prevent burnout? To answer these questions, let’s hear some words that will encourage us from Jesus today, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” Now let’s see what is wrong and address it, because we might be working for God wrongly.

  To address this issue of burnout, we have to look at a few things. The Apostle John again records consistent patterns of misunderstanding of Jesus conversations, mostly with Jews. The Jews had a tough time comprehending spiritual and physical illustrations by Jesus. They concentrated on the external (or physical) things. For instance, Jesus made a reference to water. Not physical water, but spiritual water. They misunderstood Jesus. He clarifies his statement. Now He makes a reference to food. They have the same misunderstanding as before. He clarifies this again. Jesus says, “I am not to referring to physical, but spiritual food.” All of us understand physical things like food, which gives us physical stamina. The issue with physical food is it doesn’t last forever. Several hours later we are hungry again. Many of us today are fueling the external (or physical) and never paying attention to the internal (eternal) life. Remember Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus? He tried to get Nicodemus to understand that everything he learned as a Jew concentrated on externalism. The problem was that Jews were hard-wired by in their rabbinic teachings. Everything Nicodemus learned made him focus on outward acts (externally) to God. Jesus explained that all have a spiritual problem, and “unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Jesus is speaking of the importance of spiritual water. In today’s passage, we find Jesus telling us something physical, cannot satisfy the spiritual. Jesus said His strength came from “doing the will of Him who sent Me.” It takes spiritual food to continue nourishing us. “Doing the will of Him,” is what fuels us. Doing God’s will involves acting in Spiritual power, not our own.

  In this life, many Christians unknowingly get hard-wired into the mindset of “doing.” They act in repetition in comfortableness, expecting results. This is a real danger for older Christians. When we get too comfortable in our Christian skin and act out of habit, we lose strength and burnout. When this happens, we become the same as the Jews in externalism. It concentrates on what “I” can do rather than, “doing the will of Him who sent Me.” This leads to a fainting of internal energy for “doing the will of Him who sent Me.” It becomes about “what I can add to the kingdom.” Take a close look today. Examine your life. Is it on cruise control or is it one who submits to the Lord. Ask Him to empower your efforts to doing the will of Him who sent Me. If you aren’t there today, go back to the source of your Strength. His name is Jesus.