The Divine Mentor by Wayne Cordeiro: Chapter Three: the self-feeding program
Hi everyone!
I hope your summer is off to a great start, and I hope you’re getting a lot out of our summer book, The Divine Mentor. I loved this week’s chapter because Pastor Wayne shared how New Hope Fellowship in Hawaii has created a prevailing culture where people regularly spend time with God in His Word. That’s the exact culture and peer pressure that we’re building here at Grace. 🙂
The primary message of this chapter was to challenge each of us to take personal responsibility for our own spiritual nourishment instead of relying solely on a few public teachers or preachers. Certainly, the primary calling of teachers and preachers is to minister the Word of God in a way that “feeds” our souls (so this chapter doesn’t let them off the hook), but I agree with Wayne that it’s not fair to say “we aren’t being fed” unless we are first dutifully “feeding” ourselves on the Word of God.
In John 15 Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches. If we withdraw from the vine, we’ll stop bearing fruit, and a discontented hunger will grow in us.
In addition to asking if we are feeding ourselves, I also think we need to ask if we are feeding others. In John 4:34 Jesus told His disciples that His food was to do the will of Him who sent Him, and to finish that work. Often we get “fed” as we “feed.” And I think this is especially true for mature believers who have already received a lot of quality teaching over the years. There comes a time when we can’t just receive the Word—we have to start giving the Word as well.
Once we’re faithfully feeding ourselves from the Word, and faithfully ministering to others, we’ll be in a better place to evaluate whether or not we’re being “fed” from our corporate church involvement.
In addition to these concepts I also loved it when Pastor Wayne wrote about the 5% factor—the 5% of our life that only you and I can do. Others could potentially accomplish most of what we do in our lives; however, no one can seek God, or love our loved ones, or take care of our health on our behalf.
Let’s master the 5%, and let’s be men and women of the Word!
I love you all!
Chris Jackson