You Are What You Eat

John 6:50-56

But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them."

Bread is considered a staple food.  

Every nation in the world has its bread that accompanies every meal; Indians - Naan bread, Italian - Ciabatta, French - Baguette, Cubans - pan de media noche, Jews - unleavened bread.

Jesus calls Himself here, the BREAD OF LIFE, which is great news for the world because we love bread!

We have this expression, “You are what you eat.”  And we know from science that this is literally true.

Studies show that what we eat changes us. The chemicals we take in our food show up in our cell structure and change our immune system and our nervous system. We know that if we eat fatty foods, we’ll have fatty deposits in our blood vessels. What we ingest literally change our body into something different.

If that’s true of the physical how much truer is it of the spiritual?

So when Jesus says, “I’m the bread of life.” He is in effect saying, “I’ll fill areas that nothing physical can”, because,

PHYSICAL things can’t fill SPIRITUAL needs.

That’s why I listen to people who thought intimacy with someone might fill that area, or more food might fill that area, or drugs or more money might fill that area, but they’re physical, and your need, your hunger is not physical it's spiritual.

Why is that important? Because you are what you eat.

Ephesians 5:18

“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery [Leads to sending the text we’ll regret forever, meeting the person we’ll regret, doing things we’d not do in our right mind]. Instead, be filled with the Spirit….”

Drunk on wine – intoxication

Filled with the Spirit – inspiration

He’s making the distinction between intoxication and inspiration

Intoxication has the word “toxic” in it – it means that we are literally poisoned, filled with toxins to the point of drunkenness, where we act differently than normal, we are different.

We become what we consume.

Inspiration is being filled by the Spirit to the point of becoming something different, too.

Filled with PURPOSE, not POISON

What we feed on, shapes us.

This is the critical point Jesus is making here: we are invited to be reshaped from the inside out not by the world, but by Him.

If we think of what we eat and drink, or, more broadly, what we consume in the world that is not healthy, the list is long.  

Your diet is not only what you eat. It’s what you watch, what you listen to, what you read and the people you hang out with.

Be mindful of the things you are putting into your body and mind. We must be careful with what we give our spirit access.

Let’s think of the insanity for a moment of a guy wanting abs; I mean he’s threatened to work out for the past ten years but hasn’t and though he desires abs he can’t put the Twinkies down.

It’s ridiculous right, but not much more than someone who wants God to bless them and wants God to change them, but they won’t change their diet. They won’t change their habits. “God I want to be spiritually strong, I want Godly abs.” But who spends the first and last hour of each day scrolling through TikTok.

God won’t FIGHT what we keep choosing to FEED.

You are not what you FEEL, you are what you FEED.

Our ears and our eyes are the gates to our soul. What we watch, what we listen to, who we associate with, that's constantly feeding us. And if we consume what the world is offering us, little by little the worlds menu is becoming more and more palatable. What's happening is, it's desensitizing you.

What you never would have imagined doing years ago gradually becomes OK because we were fed lies, we were fed deception.

if you want to change what’s on the outside, we have to address what we’re putting inside.

1.     Trash In, Trash Out

Proverbs 15:14, “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while a fool feeds on trash.”

If you're not selective in what you feed yourself, the TV or your social media feeds will determine your character, they will determine the person you are becoming. I’m praying for a harvest but I’m allowing seeds of gossip and slander and trash to be sown into my field I will not get the harvest I was praying for, I’ll get the harvest of seeds I had a taste for.

The challenge is, there’s a whole generation of people being discipled in the demonic and they don’t even realize it.

With physical hunger, the body screams FOOD.

The scary thing is that with spiritual hunger it’s the opposite. If you don’t feed the spirit, it goes quiet. If you don’t feed your Spirit it doesn’t get hungry.

2.     Whatever I Starve Dies, Whatever I Feed Thrives

1 Corinthians 6:19, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own….”

You are not a drug den or a trash house, you are a temple of the Most-High God, called, chosen, appointed, and approved, now do your best to keep your temple pure.

If we would just change our diet, we would go to a new level.

Make the decision to quit feeding on the trash that is polluting your mind and causing you to compromise. You're going to become what you eat.

Don’t make the bible a snack, make it your meal!

WATCH THE SERMON HERE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4uJfwU7gM4&t=4941s