What is the difference between a spiritual person and a physical person. The difference is whether you can feel the hunger and thirst of your spirit or not. We often say we are starving to death when we have just skipped one meal. Are we going to starve from skipping one meal? No, that shows us that our fleshly instincts tell us to fill our stomachs with food.
Like the flesh, our souls also eat and drink holy food. If the souls don’t eat and drink, our souls die. That’s why Jesus said, “For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.” (John 6:55) and “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” (Romans 13:14) That means you have to fight to satisfy your spiritual instincts, rather than your physical ones.
A purely physical person has never had a fresh revelation from listening to the Word of God and doesn’t like according to the Word of God. Besides, he has never experienced any of the blessings of the Word. He is just content going to church, even for years, religiously.
Such a person thinks those who long for the word of God and are very enthusiastic about the life of faith are odd people. But this isn’t the right attitude for a believer. Just as you are full when you eat food with your mouth and digest it in your stomach, the Word of God is the food of life. In this way, the right life of faith is a life where you eat the Word of God and your soul feels full.
You can make it through till lunch time by eating breakfast, and you can cope till dinner time by eating lunch, and you can survive till next morning by eating dinner. You can hold out for a week when you listen to the word of God and you can endure the thirst of the day when you listen to the word of God every morning. If you don’t feel the thirst of your soul, it doesn’t matter to you even if you don’t listen to the word of God. When you listen to the word of God, you realize for the first time just how thirsty you are and you will follow the word of God.
Pastor Seok-Jeon Yoon
Extracted from Yonsei Newspaper #600
