One of the healthier fast-food restaurants has a saying displayed prominently: "Food is essential to life. Therefore, make it good". What is true in the physical real is also true in the spiritual realm: Spiritual food is essential to spiritual life. Therefore, make it good.
"Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts." (Jeremiah 15:16)
Nothing can substitute for the spiritual nutrition that God's word brings. And, developing a healthy appetite for it is absolutely essential. Sadly, there are many people of faith whose main spiritual diet consists of man-made devotional guides, or the lessons and sermons of favorite teachers and preachers. These may well serve as good supplements, but they dare never be substitutes for God's word. Of themselves, they are like a diet consisting exclusively of dessert.
The most common challenge most of us face in studying and "ingesting" God's word is that there are plenty of passages we don't understand. Honestly, I bog down in Leviticus as I read God's various and sundry laws pertaining to cleansing, mold, and infectious skin diseases. But, there is a larger purpose for such passages, and these need to be read in faith as being beneficial. Reading them is a bit like understanding the process of digestion: we don't have to fully understand it to be nourished.
Asking two simple questions any time we read and study the Bible helps greatly in understanding: (1) What does it say?; (2) What does it say for me to do? Also, another essential to understanding is group Bible study. No one has "cornered the market" on understanding (2 Peter 1.20), so there is great benefit in studying together and learning from other diligent truth seekers.
Loving the truth of God's word is the only "deception prevention" (2 Thessalonians 2.10), and this in itself should be sufficient incentive to diligently study. Beyond that, the peace and direction that can only come from God's communication through His word is valuable beyond measure.
We really are what you eat - physically, mentally, and spiritually. A variety of Bible passages remind us to carefully select the food we serve our mind, and nothing is more important than choosing the best nutrition of all: God's word, the Bible.
May you find joy and nourishment through rich feasting on His word today.
Steve
©Steve Taylor, 2012
"Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts." (Jeremiah 15:16)
Nothing can substitute for the spiritual nutrition that God's word brings. And, developing a healthy appetite for it is absolutely essential. Sadly, there are many people of faith whose main spiritual diet consists of man-made devotional guides, or the lessons and sermons of favorite teachers and preachers. These may well serve as good supplements, but they dare never be substitutes for God's word. Of themselves, they are like a diet consisting exclusively of dessert.
The most common challenge most of us face in studying and "ingesting" God's word is that there are plenty of passages we don't understand. Honestly, I bog down in Leviticus as I read God's various and sundry laws pertaining to cleansing, mold, and infectious skin diseases. But, there is a larger purpose for such passages, and these need to be read in faith as being beneficial. Reading them is a bit like understanding the process of digestion: we don't have to fully understand it to be nourished.
Asking two simple questions any time we read and study the Bible helps greatly in understanding: (1) What does it say?; (2) What does it say for me to do? Also, another essential to understanding is group Bible study. No one has "cornered the market" on understanding (2 Peter 1.20), so there is great benefit in studying together and learning from other diligent truth seekers.
Loving the truth of God's word is the only "deception prevention" (2 Thessalonians 2.10), and this in itself should be sufficient incentive to diligently study. Beyond that, the peace and direction that can only come from God's communication through His word is valuable beyond measure.
We really are what you eat - physically, mentally, and spiritually. A variety of Bible passages remind us to carefully select the food we serve our mind, and nothing is more important than choosing the best nutrition of all: God's word, the Bible.
May you find joy and nourishment through rich feasting on His word today.
Steve
©Steve Taylor, 2012
posted by steve @ 9:25 AM
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