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Who You Invite to Dinner
by Phil Maxwell
June 26, 2002
In spiritual things, it is certainly true that you are what you
eat. This works for good and evil alike, but spiritual things are consumed and
digested differently than food. For instance, Yahshua said that His meat was to
do the will of His Father. He also said that what goes out of a man’s mouth is
what defiles him. Clearly, the words of our mouth and works of our hands can
either produce spiritual life in Christ or the devil, just like the food we
consume may either lead towards strength and life or sickness, disease, and
death.
It isn’t just a question of what we consume spiritually, though; it’s a
question of who we invite to our table. The harvest of our lives either belongs
to God or the devil, and whichever we serve is coming to dinner. Yahshua said
that He and His Father would come in and sup with those who do the will of His
Father. His meat is to do the will of His Father; doing the will of His Father
(keeping Yahshua’s words) leads to having them at your table. Looking at the
two points together, we can see that for Him and His Father to come in and sup
with someone is for them to be served a feast in the manner of enabling them to
do His will. On the other hand, those who don’t sow for the Lord will find
their house empty, swept, and garnished after Yahshua takes back what is His.
Then, in similar fashion to Yahshua and the Father coming in to sup with the
faithful, the unfaithful stewards will be entertaining demons far greater than
before they’d signed on to the Lord’s work.
The churches have failed to show forth both the unity and bond of the Spirit and
the power of the kingdom for 1,900 years. Clearly, there is a famine in the
land, no one is feasting on doing the will of God as the apostles were in the
early days of the Church, when there was only one Body bound by only one Spirit.
Has God failed to reward those who do His will as promised? Don’t be
ridiculous! The people of God have failed to do His will! Who can say they
measure their words and works as spiritual food, choosing only to eat that which
is clean?
Yahshua said that EVERY IDLE WORD we speak will be called into judgment. Does
that mean we will be judged for the words we speak? Not really. It means the
words we speak will be used against us as laws are used against defendants in a
court. If you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven. If you pass by strangers
in need, the Lord will pass you by as a stranger. If you cause others to stumble
in their walk, you will be stumbled. If you reject fellowship with the least of
His servants, He will reject fellowship with you. Whatever standard you employ
to judge others will be your own standard of judgment. Satan is the accuser of
the brethren, the prosecuting attorney, and his job is to root out our
hypocrisy. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in this court
of law. So many set themselves up for judgment by spending their days working
for the Accuser of the brethren instead of the Defender, Christ. We are supposed
to be seeking to save, not condemn! That’s Satan’s job! What are you doing
working for the prosecutor’s office while drawing salary as a member of the
defense team? Fools, every one, never realizing that all you are doing is
writing the law that will be used against you on your day in court.
Let us, therefore, be careful to eat the meat of hearing and following Christ
according to God’s will. Let us be defenders, not accusers of the brethren.
Let us consider the words of our mouth at least as carefully as we do the food
we eat, and be careful to only take what is clean. The unleavened Bread of Life
is good and sufficient for all our needs, though at times our flesh craves the
unclean spiritual food of the devil and his works; don’t eat it – it isn’t
worth it. As seed sown in a field, whatever we’ve sown with our mouth and our
hands will come back in more full measure – we will have a feast of whatever
we’ve sown, and it will be attended by whoever we have sown for – be that
the Lord or the devil.
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