FEED YOUR INNER MAN B4 YOUR OUTER MAN

George Mueller, founder of an orphanage in Bristol, England, years ago, was a man of faith. The orphanage he founded was just strictly a faith project. He didn't have any church because he wasn't pastoring, so he couldn't take up any offerings to help support these orphan children.

Eventually, Rev. Mueller wound up with as many as 2,500 orphans in his home for children. He was solely responsible to believe God for the food and clothing to feed and clothe 2,500 children! Also, he had to believe God for the money to build the buildings to house 2,500 children, plus the money to pay the attendants' salaries and for the upkeep of the orphanage property.

Rev. Mueller didn't have a mailing list to let people know what he was doing so he could ask for their help. And there were no radios in those days. He had no way to publish information about his orphanage in order to solicit prayers and financial support. Of course, the news about what he was doing would get out by word of mouth. But Rev. Mueller simply had to believe God for the money to run his orphanage. And in his lifetime, he prayed in $7,500,000. That doesn't sound too big in these days of inflation, but that was a lot of money in those days. That would probably be like $30 or $35 million today.

When he was ninety-three years old, Mueller wrote these words in his journal: "When I first started praying and believing God [in other words, exercising or using his measure of faith], it took all the faith I had to believe God for one American dollar. But after feeding and exercising my faith daily for fifty years, I could
believe God for one million dollars just as easily as I could for only one dollar fifty years before."

Rev. Mueller said, "I always begin the day by feeding on God's Word, not just reading it." Before he ever ate breakfast — before he ever fed his body — he fed his spirit man on God's Word.

Smith Wigglesworth, another English preacher, was also a man of great faith. He always carried his Bible or his New Testament with him. He said, "I never considered myself thoroughly dressed unless I had my Bible or my Testament in my pocket." He would have just as soon gone out without his shoes on as to be without his Bible. As a traveling minister in his day, Wigglesworth stayed in a lot of people's homes as he traveled all over the world. And many people have said that after every meal, even if he was in a restaurant or a cafe, Wigglesworth would always push back from the table, get out his Testament and say, "Well, we've fed the body; now let's feed the inward man." And he'd start reading, and he'd read something about faith and usually wind up giving a little faith message.

F. F. Bosworth said, "Most Christians feed their bodies three hot meals a day, and their spirit one cold snack a week. And they wonder why they're so weak in faith."

Well, if you just ate one cold snack a week physically, you'd grow weak physically! The same is true spiritually. God's Word is faith food! You see, a lot of times people are praying, "Oh God, give me faith," but they're paying no attention at all to the means He's put in their hands to produce faith — the Bible. Well, God can't answer that prayer, because in a sense, He's already answered it. He's already told you in His Word how faith comes: ". . . by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). (Kenneth Hagin)