Highlight: The war within us

There is a war being fought between our spirit and our flesh. Whichever one we feed wins.

According to Susie Larson, one of the ways we lose our passion in our spiritual life is when we sacrifice our time and energy on things that do nothing but eat it up.

“We lose our taste for that which strengthens us when we feed on the things that weaken us.”

She elaborates by describing the appetites of our flesh and our Spirit,

“It’s almost like when you feed on sugar, you lose your taste for actual fruit; when you drink soda, water doesn’t taste good anymore and you don’t even realize it. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, he says, ‘We feed on the things that trash our bodies while our souls go hungry.’  We do these short cuts with our spiritual appetites and we wonder why we drift, but we’re so quick to drift.”

When we feed into our flesh, we are compromising the condition of our spirit. Instead we need to be strategic about positioning ourselves to receive spiritual nourishment.

“When you feed the soul on the things of truth; when you expose yourself to teachings like you hear on Faith Radio, to music, and you put yourself in a position to be nourished, you are quicker to discern a lie and you acquire a richer taste.”

Susie points us towards Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 3:2,

“Paul said, ‘There’s so many things I would tell you, but you can’t handle them. You’re still drinking milk; you’re not ready for the deeper truths.’ How many Christians just aren’t ready for the deeper truths because they’re still feeding on milk and they’re letting their pastors spoon feed them?”

Feeding the flesh often causes us to be distracted and lose sight of His plan for our lives. Feeding our spirit will help us acquire a taste for the things of God and strengthen our soul. Susie reminds us that feeding our spirit requires work on our end to become spiritually mature and grow in our walk with the Lord.

“One of the glories of being a Christian is to mature, to grow up in the things of God, but you can’t do that without time in His word, without cultivating a listening lifestyle, and I would say obedience has a big part in that as well.”

Susie challenges us to be intentional about the time we spend feeding our Spirit.

“I’m not saying we should be legalistic about this, but just look at some of the time you maybe waste on Facebook and other things, harness some of that time; maybe fast from social media and get a good book; get in the Word and get a vision for where God is taking you.”


Susie Larson has spoken to thousands of women locally, nationally, and internationally. She’s the author of 10 books, most recently . She’s the host of Live the Promise – a daily talk show heard on Faith Radio.

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