"I Quit! Part 1 Series

While I was preparing to write the message for today, the Holy Spirit asked me, “Where are my people getting their milk from?” As I began writing the first words, the Holy Spirit asked me again, “Where are my people getting their milk from?” With each word I wrote, the question became more intense. The question began to be accompanied by images. This images were not images of lollipops, rainbows, pots of gold, and purple gumdrops. These images weren’t of smiling faces running through the factory with Willie Wonka to smell and taste the wallpaper. These images were of destruction and brokeness.

If anyone remembers the 1971 movie, the original movie, titled, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, they should remember when Willie Wonka takes the children, and the adults with them, to the area that was lined with wallpaper. This wallpaper was an invention created that allowed 1 dimensional images that resembled fruit to taste like real fruit. In this scene, Willie Wonka stated, “I must show you this. Lickable wallpaper for nursery school walls. Go ahead, try it. The oranges taste like oranges, the rasberries taste like rasberries, the shnozberries taste like shnozberries.” The Lord began to deal with me and revealed that what we are seeing is a substitute for real fruit. The Lord then led me to the following verse:

1Pe 2:2 AMP -- Like newborn babies you should crave (thirst for, earnestly desire) the pure (unadulterated) spiritual milk, that by it you may be nurtured and grow unto (completed) salvation,

The Holy Spirit, then, led me to another set of verses:

1Co 3:1-3a AMP -- 1 HOWEVER, BRETHREN, I could not talk to you as to spiritual (men), but as to nonspiritual (men of the flesh, in whom the carnal nature predominates), as to mere infants (in the new life) in Christ (unable to talk yet!) 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not yet strong enough (to be ready for it); but even yet you are not strong enough (to be ready for it), 3a For you are still (unspiritual, having the nature) of the flesh (under the control of ordinary impulses).

The Lord, then, declared: “My people are craving spiritual milk, but I am disturbed because instead of feeding themselves with the Word, they are choosing to feed themselves with the world. Their actions, their words, their relationships, their finances, and the fruit they bear are direct results of the substitutes they are consuming.”

You didn’t hear me. So, let me repeat it:

The Lord declared that “their actions, their words, their relationships, their finances, and the fruit they bear are direct results of the substitutes they are consuming.” My God, My God. This is heavy.

The Lord is saying that the many issues we face have a direct correlation to the substitutes we choose to consume. The world cannot provide us with the real thing. The world cannot supplement our spiritual needs. The world can only provide us with a substitute. And, just like in Willie Wonka, after you finish licking the wall, you find yourself still hungry. The world cannot fulfill the needs that only God can. The Word says that God can, and will, fulfill every need. Anything else is just not good enough.

Just like you can’t substitute Ramen Noodles for pasta and say that you have an authentic Italian meal, you can’t be fed by the world and say that you are being fed the real deal. Only the Word of God is that real deal. And feasting on the Word will lead you to true satisfaction and real manifestations. Just like with eating a whole bunch of Ramen Noodles, when you allow the world to feed you with substitutes, you will look back later in life, still hungry, wondering why you now have high blood pressure, wondering why no relationships ever lasted, wondering why you have a table full of medicine to treat the effects of the effects of the medicine designed to treat an original issue.

The world will leave you with all types of issues (heartache, heartbreak, uncontrollable health issues, brokenness, depression, anxiety, addictions, and much more), but the Word will lead you to everything that the world cannot give (healing, prosperity, a sense of self worth, the right relationships, peace, a sense of belonging, deliverance, and exaltation). Being of world is just not good enough for who you are.

And, this brings me to lesson for today:

“I quit!” Part 1.

To begin, I would have to say, that the preface to this message, was a great start to looking at what we need to quit. The world would like us to believe that we can find all of the answers within the world. The world would like us to believe that we will be just fine on our own just as long as we stay within the confines of its boundaries. The world would like us to believe that the demands on who we are can be reconciled if we just work harder. The world wants us to find our identity within precepts of the world. But, I contend that this line of thinking is wrong. I contend that, if we find our identity in Christ, if we move our focus away from the world and onto Christ, if we release our will to God’s will, we will begin to see our Chief Priest, Jesus Christ, providing all of our needs, supplying us abundantly and exceedingly above anything we can ask for, and filling us to overflow.