Junk Food Junkies

There are in fact more necessities of life than we usually think of.
Social engagements - Sleep - Laughter - Putting ourselves out for other people - Father - Mother - Challenge / Goal . . .
Four notable ones
1 Air - Holy Spirit
2 Water Forgiveness, both giving and receiving
3 Food - Word of God / Bible
4 Exercise Witnessing

What is it with North American Christians? Christians who come over here from other parts of the world are most often thoroughly puzzled by us.
4 We substitute being the cheer squad of the bleachers, for the misssionary and professional evangelists, for witnessing. All the exercise we get 'walking the walk' is localized in our jaw. How many of us could explain the Gospel to someone in two minutes or less?
3 Spiritually we are a bunch of Junk Food Junkies. We substitute listening to fifteen-minute homilies once a month when we get to church for devouring the meat / protine of the Bible for ourselves. We depend on beats to give us an adrenalin high, rock beats. Instead of the eight essential sugars of the sweet psalms we go for the cotton candy fluff of the latest jingle. Vitamins? How many can even name the sixty-six books of the Bible? Minerals? Instead of our Rock we go for the currents, the current best seller. Fat is not mentioned in the NT but oil is.
2 Forgiveness is water to the soul. Lots of people even Christians insist that we have to forgive every one for everything that they can do or have ever done to us. I say No ! Lots of people even Christians say that God will forgive us for all the bad things that we do and say and think. I say No ! God Himself can not put forgiveness above justice. I say IF we ask for it God will forgive us Only because in Christ we are already dead for that sin. IF the other person asks for it we are to forgive, not before. In both cases restitution, to what ever extent possible, is an essential part of it. We can not expect anyone to forgive us until we ask for it. A clean conscience, being free of guilt, is essential to life. What do we do? We go around with chips on our shoulder and grudges against even our fellow Christian and wonder why the Christian life is so dead. We don't bother getting right with God or we are insensitive to the fact that we have done anything amiss and we wonder why He doesn't talk to us.

Water is useful for two things, cleaning and what I might call lubrication; it is the closest thing to a universal solvent and is unique in the world of molecules, critical to life. “Now you are clean through the Word that I have spoken to you” Jhn 15:3 that word is ‘I forgive you’. “IF we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us ...(because He already died for those sins)”

1 The breath of Life. Air. The Holy Spirit. Pnumartology (greek word for breath). How long do we last without air? "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being" Acts 17:28 The essence of the Christian life. How do we know what the Holy Spirit is like? Maybe by what He does? By what He has done in the past? By what He has done in our own personal life? Of course there is no speaking in tongues, there are no miracles, we can explain it all by science and psycology. One of these days science will 'create' a 'living' cell from a bunch of chemicals and then where will the faith of all the Christians go ? ? The Holy Spirit is our only tie to God in the world right now, without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives the Bible would be just another book, and yet though we say that He is With us and IN us we act like He is just another theo logical novelty to intrigue our intellect. We are Not told to worship Him or pray to Him but we Are told not to grieve or quench Him. We are not told that we have to speak in tongues but we are told “Do not forbid speaking in tongues” 1Cor 14:39 We are told to pray for the sick James 5:22 “If you are lead by the Spirit you are not under the law – so act like it - The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace Gal 5:18,22
This I say then Walk in the Spirit ! Gal 5:16 Take a deep breath !