Weekly Devotional - STUDY GOD'S WORD - May 24, 2010

from Lenae, GEMS Training Manager

STUDY GOD’S WORD

 

Do not snatch the word of truth from my mouth, for I have put my hope in your laws.
Psalm 119:42

You are what you eat is a well-known phrase that the food one eats comes with consequences to a person’s mind and health. Eat good food: experience good health. Eat junk food: experience poor health. Food becomes part of our inner being – strengthening or weakening our bodies.


What’s true for feeding our physical bodies is true for our spiritual health as well. In the book of Revelation when John went to the angel and asked him to give him the little scroll, the angel said to him, “Take it and eat it” (Revelation 10:9). Eugene Peterson writes, “The book he ate was Holy Scripture. John got it into his nerve endings, his reflexes, his imagination.”


Chew your food. We chew on Scripture through meditation, understanding, and obedience. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful (Joshua 1:8). Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly (Colossians 3:16).


Clean your plate. Like children who eat their favorite part of the meal and shove the vegetables under their napkin hoping no one will notice, there’s a temptation to feast on our favorite Scripture passages and push verses like love your enemies (Matthew 5:44) and forgive your brother and sister from your heart (18:21-35) to the side. We mustn’t read our Bibles like picky eaters – picking and choosing what we want to hear. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).


Fresh is best. Warren Wiersbe writes, “Just as the Jews could not live on yesterday’s manna, so you cannot live on yesterday’s spiritual diet.” Don’t live on the leftovers of Sunday’s sermon. Get in the Word yourself, every day! Love God’s Word and meditate on it all day long (Psalm 119:97). I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word (Psalm 119:16).


Feasting on God’s Word will keep us pure, counsel us, preserve our life, strengthen us, cause us to walk in true freedom, comfort us in suffering, encourage us in affliction, light our path, give us understanding, sustain us, and uphold us. (See Psalm 119 for a full listing of spiritual health benefits.)


These blessings won’t through a drive through window of a short devotional or power verse for the day. Feed the fire by studying God’s Word, listening to it, and doing what it says (James 1:22).


PASSION Step: Ask God to increase your hunger pains for His holy Word.

If all church members were like you, would the church be more like the world? Or would the church be more powerful in its witness because it would be deeper into the Word?

Anne Graham Lotz