Is Your Spirit Eating Healthy Food?

Short Talk (SHT111a) Is your spirit feeding on healthy food? © Jane Hulme 2018 SHORT TALK: “Is your spirit feeding on healthy food?” Aim of Short talk: Use of Short talk: Main themes: Biblical references: Lectionary: Props: To challenge people to feed their spirits upon the healthy “food” of Jesus. This is a short All Age talk picking out one issue from the Lectionary Gospel reading of the Sunday main service. The talk stands alone and assumes that the Gospel Bible reading may not yet have been read to the congregation. It could be used for example, for the whole congregation before the children go out to their age specific groups, leaving the adults with a full sermon later. Jesus, Faith, Eternal life John 6:51-58 Year B – The 11th Sunday after Trinity A table laid out with a variety of different foods eg bags of crisps, chocolate biscuits, packets of sweets, apples, carrots, cheese, lettuce, loaf of bread, eggs, potatoes, bag of brown pasta etc. .................................................................................................................. Who is good at Biology or Food Tech at school? Would you like to come and join me? (Receive volunteer) • As you can see, on my table today are a whole variety of different foods. Can you tell me which of these foods are good for my body if I eat them? (Volunteer identifies healthy foods) • Can you tell me why I need to eat those particular foods? (Volunteer answers) Our bodies have been created by Father God in such a way that we need to eat a whole mixture of different foods in order to stay healthy. • Some foods are needed to help us grow, whilst others are needed to give us energy, make repairs and keep everything working well. What would happen if I lived off a diet of sweets, crisps and chocolate biscuits? (Volunteer answers) • I would probably get very fat and my body would not work well would it? • Thank you N (name of volunteer) – please sit down. It matters what we eat doesn’t it? • It matters what we take into our physical bodies. However Father God hasn’t simply made us with a physical body. • When He created us He breathed life into us and gave us a human spirit. (1Corinthians 2:11) • Our human spirit enables us to love, to be creative, to think, to feel and to relate to God. © Jane Hulme 2018 2 Unlike our bodies that need a whole variety of different foods to stay healthy, our human spirits need only one “food,” • and that “food” is Jesus. After Jesus had fed the five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish He said to the people: • “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” (John 6:51) Now Jesus didn’t mean that we are to literally eat Him to feed our spirits. • What Jesus meant was that in order to have the life that God created us to have, then we need to have relationship with Him. • We need to receive Jesus into our hearts, accepting Him as our Saviour and our Lord. • When we do that, we receive the wonderful gift of eternal life. Sometimes we think that we can feed our spirits in other ways, and not with Jesus. • Some people try and feed their spirits with money, or by owning lots of stuff, • by idolising celebrities and so on. • The problem is that like junk food isn’t good for our physical body, these things won’t feed our spirits, only a relationship with Jesus will. So today as we think about feeding our bodies with healthy foods, • have you fed your spirit with a relationship with Jesus? Have you received Jesus into your heart as your Saviour and Lord? • And if you have done that, are you continuing to feed on Jesus each day, by spending time with Him, developing your relationship? © Jane Hulme 2018 3