"Spiritual Junk Food"

We all crave junk food sometimes. Sadly, millions of people yield to the pressures of a society that thrives on junk food. We see it almost everywhere we go...in grocery and convenience stores, fast food restaurants, vending machines on our jobs, and on television. It looks very appealing, but offers very little nutritional value.

The term junk food refers to foods that taste good but are low in nutritional value and contribute lots of calories. Most "junk food" falls into the categories of either "snack food" or "fast food."  Foods such as, chips, soft drinks, candy bars, cookies, and many meals purchased at fast-food restaurants fit this criteria.  

Have you been feeding your soul with "spiritual junk food"?

We know the junk food we eat has little to no nutritional value, but what about spiritual junk food? There is spiritual food that nourishes the soul, and there is spiritual junk food that makes us seem like we’re holy and true followers of Christ.

To be spiritually healthy, we have to avoid "spiritual junk food" as well. In Galatians there were some religious teachers proclaiming "a different gospel" (Galatians. 1:6). And that still holds true today and  we must be able to distinguish between between what is healthy and what is unhealthy. We must discern between catchy phrases and teachings that tickle the "flesh" and teachings that nourish our soul. Taking in this kind of “food” may seem to satisfy spiritual hunger, but it will not lead to spiritual health.

Hebrews warns us: "Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace" (Hebrews. 13:9). False teaching is detrimental to our health and is not profitable, because it cannot cleanse from sin, give power for spiritual growth, and lures us away from the spiritual truths Jesus revealed during His ministry on earth. 

We should avoid "spiritual junk food"  and instead feast on God’s Word to promote our spiritual health.  "Spiritual junk food" doesn’t challenge you to grow in your faith, change your bad habits or lifestyle or enable you to withstand worldly pressures like lust, prideful selfishness, false teaching, and persecution.

The Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy 4:3, "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

The Apostle Paul instructs Timothy, his spiritual son in the Lord, that a time would come when people will not endure sound doctrine - Greek, “healthful doctrine;” i. e., doctrine contributing to the health of the soul, or to salvation. At that time they would seek a kind of instruction more conformable to their wishes and feelings.  Barnes' Notes on the Bible

How many of us are as concerned about our spiritual diets as we are about our natural ones? Are we using discernment in choosing the material we read, the Christian programs we watch and the ministers we listen to? Are we able to distinguish between the meat and the milk of the Word, the holy and the profane?  God doesn't want us to be ignorant of His truth.  The Bible says "They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean." (Ezekiel 44:23) 

Many people are so used to mixture that they have lost a taste for what is pure. Unfortunately, lavish displays and methods of presentation and worship, sugar-coated preaching/teaching have come to be more important than what is being served, and the servers more important than what they serve. Those sitting down at the spiritual "table" are often left undernourished and unable to discern between the secular and the sacred.

Isaiah 55:1-3 offers us a great invitation "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk   without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David."

May these words bring you the abundant life Jesus came to provide for you!