The Hungry Disciple

I'm The Hungry Disciple, and I've been chewing on Newness! When Jesus began His ministry He did not go down to the local synogogue and choose the top 12 Bar Mitzvah boys. He could have. He had been one of those young men himself, and considered discussing The Scriptures as being about His Father's business. Yet The Holy Spirit did not instruct Him to choose those Bible students, among them Saul of Tarsus, as students of The Kingdom of God. No He was instructed to choose simple fishermen, a tax collector, a political rebel and nobodys to teach His New and Living Way. One of the ways He explained His choice was by saying that it ruins the wine and the wineskin to attempt to put new wine into old wineskins.  We all know that grape juice becoming wine produces a gas and the container must stretch. The Hebrews used animal skins or stomachs to store liquids and they were used over and over and over. Eventually, after being used to hold new wine many times

I am The Hungry Disciple and I've been chewing on The Word. Have you ever noticed that The Word of God uses the same word in a negative and positve context? I have been thinking about the word stronghold. The Bible uses the word stronghold both as a decription of God's protection and as a place we are ensared in mental torment, confusion and wrong believing. The picture of both is one of being surrounded by a high an impenetrable place; one a place of safety and the other a prison. The Bible tells us we have wrong thoughts of every kind and that those wrong thoughts and the wrong beliefs they are based on cause us torment and can prevent us from knowing and receiving all the Truth that Jesus Christ is for and in us. This flawed thinking is not something we can change in ourselves. All the self-discipline in the world may control such thinking for at time, but the word stronghold implies that these thoughts are ingrained, like a rut in a muddy road that

I'm one of those people who eat when they are emotional. I eat anything-things I don't really want. I'll go stand in the kitchen or gaze in the cupboards and refrigerator just thinking about what I can eat next. I haven't had much success overcoming that habit and you know, food is just not helpful. It looks good. It smells good. It tastes good. It offers no warnings. It is silent, never saying , "Ahhh, I'm nutrionally bankrupt", or "I'll put a good five pounds on you if you keep eating me."   Unfortunately, my wrong believing-that food is comforting, or distracting, shows on the outside of me too. Lots of us show the effects of wrong believing on the outside, but even if our wrong believing has no visible effect, wrong believing always has an inner effect. I often wish I had been one of those people who could eat anything and maintain a healthy weight. However, hidden from view, my arteries would be clogging and my liver would be ge