EAT UP!
By: Tim & Cheri Henderson
Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word became to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart…
Jeremiah 15:16 NKJV
I am married to a woman who absolutely loves to cook ... and I, without a doubt, love to eat, so we're quite a match, wouldn't you say?! What's amazing to me is that when my wife serves up one of her delicious meals, she eats it so quickly, I wonder whether she's even really tasted it at all! She says it's an ingrained habit from her childhood because everyone in her eight-member family had the mindset "whoever eats the quickest, gets the mostest!” She readily admits she doesn't slow down and eat deliberately like she should, and understands she's probably not receiving the health benefits that go hand-in-hand with doing so.
Sadly, there have been times I've done the same thing when it comes to “eating the Word of God.” There is nothing spiritually nurturing about quickly fitting God into my day and treating Him as an afterthought or something less important than my other daily activities. Just as our bodies need food to stay healthy and operate at peak performance, we need the Word of God to feed and strengthen us to resist temptation and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
I encourage you, therefore, to daily imitate Jesus and the manner in which He spent time with the Father. Go to a place where you can be alone with God, somewhere quiet and free of distraction. Talk to Him. Worship Him. Praise Him for all He is. Thank Him for all He has done. And then read His love letter to you, the Bible. Don’t hurry through it … "eat it," think about it, enjoy it.
The Word of God is one of our greatest sources of spiritual food. In fact, the Bible talks about how important it is to our lives: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4 NKJV) Eat up!
Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word became to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart…
Jeremiah 15:16 NKJV
I am married to a woman who absolutely loves to cook ... and I, without a doubt, love to eat, so we're quite a match, wouldn't you say?! What's amazing to me is that when my wife serves up one of her delicious meals, she eats it so quickly, I wonder whether she's even really tasted it at all! She says it's an ingrained habit from her childhood because everyone in her eight-member family had the mindset "whoever eats the quickest, gets the mostest!” She readily admits she doesn't slow down and eat deliberately like she should, and understands she's probably not receiving the health benefits that go hand-in-hand with doing so.
Sadly, there have been times I've done the same thing when it comes to “eating the Word of God.” There is nothing spiritually nurturing about quickly fitting God into my day and treating Him as an afterthought or something less important than my other daily activities. Just as our bodies need food to stay healthy and operate at peak performance, we need the Word of God to feed and strengthen us to resist temptation and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
I encourage you, therefore, to daily imitate Jesus and the manner in which He spent time with the Father. Go to a place where you can be alone with God, somewhere quiet and free of distraction. Talk to Him. Worship Him. Praise Him for all He is. Thank Him for all He has done. And then read His love letter to you, the Bible. Don’t hurry through it … "eat it," think about it, enjoy it.
The Word of God is one of our greatest sources of spiritual food. In fact, the Bible talks about how important it is to our lives: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4 NKJV) Eat up!