From the pages of my daily journal

Sunday morning, 11/11/07. (6:55am) [sections in brackets are not part of my actual journal]
I asked the Lord for counsel. [I am in the process of making many changes in my life and there are a lot of question marks about the future for me right now.] He said, "earn the bread you eat." This is of course something we are to obey in the context of being laborers. [In Proverbs it tells us to work if we expect to eat, and in 1 Timothy Paul exhorts Timothy to command the believers not to be busybodies, but to earn the bread they eat.] The Lord was making reference to this, but much moreso for me right now He was referring to earning the 'spiritual' bread that I eat, meaning the bread of the word. [24 days before this] the Lord told me that He is testing me to see how I respond to the faithfulness of the Father. [This is of course an interesting statement, but in this season I have seen such a great demonstration of God's faithfulness in my life. I have also seen each of these blessings of the Lord tested and tried, for it says that 'the testing of our faith develops perseverance.'] This specific season of testing is over, I have signed my paper and handed it in to the Holy Spirit. When I asked Him for counsel this morning He gave me this exhortation, my grade so to speak: "Earn the bread you eat."

[So how do we earn the bread we eat in a spiritual sense? This is my question as I proceed into this new season. In my current understanding, it is demonstrating my faith by what I do. I have been given a rich blessing of spiritual bread through the word of God and the Spirit of God, His teachers of the word, and through godly relationships. God demonstrated His faithfulness to me by what He did and He is asking me to do the same. Demonstrate this faith by what I do. Jesus gave us a great plan on how to do this. It is called the sermon on the mount. If we want to demonstrate the faith of God through our lives and be filled with His faithfulness in our lives we will accomplish this by living a life that resembles the sermon on the mount. So what soes the sermon on the mount tell us to do? Well, read it for yourself, but for a quick summary here's what it says to me.
It says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. This is the first commandment. Then it says to love your neighbor. This is the second commandment. Then Jesus expounds on this because we love the word love and we have many of our own mindsets and definitions of what that means. He describes the fulfillment of these commandments by humbly doing these five things:
1) Pray. This is spending time with God when nobody else is around, with other people, and in our minds and hearts continually. This is not just a good spiritual discipline to be religious, but it is the very necessity of our existence in a life with God. Without a life of prayer we will die spiritually, and when we get to eternity there will be nothing left because we will have replaced our eternal life with the fruit of this world (the knowledge of good and evil), and this leads to death, not eternal life.
2) Service. We must serve one another to love one another. Love, like faith is demonstrated by what we do.
3) Giving. If we hold onto anything in this natural world it will leave us with a void in things eternal. Let us bless one another with our earthly inheritance to help one another walk in this life with more unity and faith. Giving and service help us trust one another, and the mystery of Christ is fulfilled in us through unity in the love and faithfulness of Christ.
4) Fasting. God knows our flesh is like grass. Fasting helps us embrace this reality. Until we are in the next age with God in our heavenly bodies the bodies we live in are subject to every manner of burden that comes from the fallen world we live in. Of course, by faith in Christ we are free from sin, infirmity, and all the things that bind, but this world is going to remind us that the bodies we have now are not permanent. We are subject to aging, pain... the list goes on. Fasting is like a fast forward into the weakness of our flesh, but it is when we are the weakest that God can use us the most, because He loves to demonstrate His glory in our weakness and humility.
5) Forgiveness. There is no greater display of the mercy, love and humility of Jesus than forgiveness. It releases freedom in Christ and that is the most powerful force in all of creation because it is a power greater than anything created. Forgiveness unites us with a power that has always been, a power from eternity past. The grace of God has always been and it demonstrates the love of God that has always been, always is, and always will be. Mercy triumphs over judgment, and forgiveness says, "I choose mercy." There is no greater way to agree with God than by choosing to forgive. There is no greater way to say, "I choose to love the world the way Jesus loves the world," than by choosing to forgive. When we forgive we are forgiven. Jesus loves to forgive. If He didn't there would be no cross. Let us seek the heart of God and walk in His forgiveness. Forgiveness is about choice, again a demonstration by what we do. If we wait to feel like forgiving we likely will not do it. To choose Jesus is to choose forgivness. If you cannot forgive, kneel before Jesus and ask for help from the One who is able to do all things.]

These words come out of conviction of what God is doing in my own life, not out of desire to teach any doctrine, but to share the light of God with others. Blessings.