Today’s Bible Reading: 119:86-176
by Bill Hood | July 8, 2010 | In Daily Reading | Comments Off
Eat The Word!
Psalms 119:86-176
Well, hush my mouth! I clicked on yesterdays reading and read what came up in my browser and wrote about it without realizing that the 119th Psalm was actually divided in two by our reading schedule. Now what am I going to write about!?
Well, this Psalm is all about praising God and His Word, and to it, as to all of Scripture, I say a hearty AMEN! I preached the third sermon of my life back on June 13, 2010. It was shortly after having read how Israel had lost God’s Word in 2 Chronicles. I had been shocked that Israel could lose something so precious; so critical to spiritual life. This led me to preach on the importance of God’s Word as our spiritual sustenance. I won’t repeat the entire sermon here; if you’d like to hear it, and I don’t know why you would, you can do so at this URL: (If you’d like to hear GOOD preaching then skip my recording and select one of Pastor Jim’s. You’ll be glad you did!)
http://www.donelsonfamily.org/sermonseries?sermon_id=183
Reading the following passage reminded me of this concept and so I thought I would share my thought on the subject here.
Psalm 119:93
“I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life.”
God’s Word has given us life. We all seem incredibly obsessed with the quality of this short, limited physical life. We pursue worldly pleasures, things, and fades. Some work hard to have a better quality of life. They exercise and try to “eat right”. They are very careful about what they put into their bodies. But what about what we put into our soul? God’s Word gives us life. The book of John tells us that Jesus was the Word become flesh. Jesus tells us in that same book that He is the Bread of Life, and Living Water. Jesus is our sustenance. He told us that we were to abide in Him by remaining attached to the vine.
He is the vine and through that vine flow essential, life sustaining nutrients. One of the ways we remain attached to Him is to “eat” of His Holy Word. He is the Word. He sustains us. Do you partake of His Word? How many times a day do you physically eat; three or more? How many times a day do you spiritually eat; one or less? I would suggest that we are eating spiritually at all hours of the day. As long as our eyes and ears are open we are taking things into our spiritual stomach. The question is, are we taking in spiritual junk food, spiritual poison, or spiritual health food? Every TV show, every magazine, every radio program, and computer website are going into our spiritual stomach.
I hear a lot of people tell me they don’t have time to get into God’s Word every day. Is it because they are eating spiritual junk food or poison? If you fill up on chocolate cake, will you have interest in eating fruit, vegetables, and healthy protein? No. In my sermon I likened my previously poor Bible reading habits to living as a concentration camp prisoner. I was all skin and bones spiritually. Ironically this wasn’t because I wasn’t taking in food; it was because I was taking in the wrong food.
Physically I’m over weight. I need to eat better. I know doing so will help me feel better, have more energy, live longer and better enjoy the life I live. This is true for our spirit. We need to get healthy spiritually. We have to stop taking in the junk food and start gobbling up the buffet God has laid before us. His Word sustains, grows, strengthens, and blesses. Why would you eat anything else?
Have a spiritually healthy day brothers!
Your brother and servant in Christ,
Bill
Dying to self, living to serve!
P.S. I recently went out to the website called Technorati. This site tracks and ranks blogs. If you want to see just a small selection of some of the millions of blogs out there here is a good place to start: http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/
If you scroll down to “Living” you will see the category “Religion”. If you click on “Religion”, and then on page 6 or 7, you will see “Brothers of the Book” at number 134. At least it was 134 at the time I wrote this. Yesterday it was at 131 with a red down arrow and it still has that red arrow. At any rate, I am tickled that the blog is number 134 out of 1,659. I hope one day to break into the Top 100!
http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/living/religion/page-7/
A couple of days ago I received a comment from someone in Germany that alleged that he had heard about the blog on a radio show in Indiana, carried online by Pandora, that discussed blogging and Web 2.0. It could have just been, and I suspect it was, part of a cleaver spam scheme, but the same day Twitter notified me that a blogger in England retweeted one of the blog posts from Psalms. His site is about Cricket (the game) so I’m not sure how or why that relates to Brothers of the Book, but it seems this little old blog maybe starting to draw a larger audience. I hope so! Not for my sake but for His!!! It is my prayer every day the God will be glorified in and through this blog. May His name be praised forever!
