We have all heard the old saying, “You are what you eat.” To a certain degree this is true – if you eat food that is high in fat, unless you exercise, you will become overweight – you will become fat. Dieticians have known this fact for many years. Physically, you are what you eat. However, the Bible teaches that the physical body is not who we truly are. Peter makes this crystal clear in 2 Peter 1:13-14 “Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.” Peter understood that the earthly “tabernacle” – his body – was but a temporary shelter for his eternal spirit.
We are essentially spiritual beings, created in the image of God – in His likeness. (Genesis 1:26-27). Since God is a spirit (John 4:24), and Spirit has no physical appearance, then how are we created in His likeness? We are in His likeness because we have a spirit created within us (Genesis 2:7), a spirit that will exist into eternity with God or separated from God. (Matthew 25:46). Since our spirit is eternal in its endurance and God is the Eternal Spirit that created us, we are like Him in that regard.
Therefore, spiritually speaking, what we eat or how we eat it has little to do with who we truly are. Jesus affirms this in Mark 7:15, “There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.”
So then, if our physical body and the things we put in it do not define who we truly are, then what does? The wise king Solomon said, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…” (Proverbs 23:7) Solomon says it is our thoughts that define who we truly are. The thoughts and intents of the heart, the things we think about when we are alone with our thoughts are more indicative of who we truly are than is the things that we do and say publicly. If we think about nothing but what food we eat – then we truly are what we eat. If our thoughts are constantly upon worldly matters then we are worldly. If our thoughts are constantly upon spiritual matters then we are spiritual. Romans 8:5 make this obvious, “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” In the next verse, Paul tells us the result of being carnally minded, “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6).
The Bible commands us to be spiritually minded. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:1-2). It should be our desire to become spiritually minded – but how do we go about it? By warring a spiritual warfare, using our spiritual weapon – the Spirit’s sword (Ephesians 6:17), “…to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:3-5) Do you want to be spiritually minded? Do you want life and peace? “Seek the things that are above” by seeking “first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33) How do we bring “into captivity every thought to the captivity of Christ”? Put “self” to death – “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset” you. (Hebrews 12:1). Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) Become so involved in the Lord’s work that it absorbs you to the point that it dominates your being and requires all your heart and mind to focus on it.
When in everything we do, we seek to please God, it will require us to think about and study about what pleases Him. It will cause us to focus our minds upon the spiritual and waste less time with thoughts about worldly matters and other things that distract us spiritually.