This past Sunday at House Chapel we revisited Jesus’ encounter with the Devil in Mathew 4. Jesus revealed something very profound in that encounter.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” – Matthew 4:4
Think about what happens when you intentionally skip meals. Eventually you become tired. Your concentration decreases. Your patience becomes shorter. You become irritable. Your strength begins to diminish. Tasks that normally seem manageable suddenly become difficult.
Physical starvation eventually affects how you function and spiritual starvation works in much the same way. When we continually neglect the Word of God, we should not be surprised when our spiritual strength begins to disappear.
- We lose our zeal for the Kingdom of God.
- We lose spiritual perspective.
- We become discouraged more easily.
- Temptation becomes harder to resist.
- Our emotions begin controlling us.
- Our circumstances begin defining us.
- The opinions of people become louder than the voice of God.
- And battles that should have been fought from a position of faith begin to overwhelm us.
Why? Because you cannot continually starve your Soul and expect to remain spiritually strong.
Psalm 119:105 says: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
If we neglect the lamp, we should not be surprised when the path begins to look dark.
Romans 10:17 says: “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
If we constantly feed ourselves fear, anxiety, bad news, social media, worldly opinions and human philosophies; but rarely feed ourselves Scripture – what do we expect to grow inside us?
Whatever you continually feed will eventually become stronger.
Many of us grew up hearing sermons about reading the Bible. We have heard repeatedly that God’s Word is our spiritual food. Yet the question remains: Do I actually hunger for it? I eat physical food every day because my body reminds me that I am hungry. But when was the last time my soul cried out:
“I need to hear from God today.”
“I need His Word.”
“I cannot live today on yesterday’s revelation.”
Job said: “I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.” – Job 23:12
That is spiritual hunger. I am not suggesting that Scripture commands us to read the Bible exactly three times every day because we normally eat three meals. But the illustration should challenge us: If we would never intentionally starve our bodies for days, why are we comfortable starving our souls?
This morning may the cry of your heart be – “Lord, give me a fresh hunger for Your Word. Teach me to treasure Your voice and depend upon Your truth every day.”
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