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Psalm 119:103 – How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (NKJV)
Growing in Christ has been lovely and exhilarating for me. As time has passed, I have found myself always bringing words of Scripture into my everyday confabulations with friends and family. One day, someone said to me, "Why do you always bring the Bible into every discussion?" At that moment, I didn't have any answer for the fellow. How could I possibly tell someone how sweet God's Word is?
The Word of God should never taste bitter or boring to His children. It should rather interest and excite us whenever we hear or see it.
Jeremiah 15:16a – Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. (NKJV)
Ezekiel 3:3 – And He said to me, "Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you." So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness. (NKJV)
Believers for whom the Scriptures taste bland will always sleep during church sermons. They will always want to walk out of the church after praise and worship sessions, and talk about something else. The exact location of their Bible at home will remain unknown to them. They are always not in Sunday school or Bible study classes.
Friend, I tell you solemnly, being in that state is spiritually unhealthy, because Christ said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." (Luke 4:4b NKJV)
This means that if we feed on physical food alone and fail to feed our spirit with the spiritual food of God's Word, we could be fine and good-looking outwardly but spiritually malnourished. Eating is good, but eating only physical food is bad for Christians.
How do we acquire a love for God's Word? Firstly, we must recognize that we are unable to cultivate a deep longing for His Word on our own. Instead, we must ask the Lord to give us a great love for it, and He will do that, because it is His will.
1 John 5:14-15 – Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. (NKJV)
Let us start with a Bible verse or Bible passage each day. Follow gospel posts online. Keep only gospel movies and songs on your phone. Keep the Word of God in sight by meditating on it and memorizing it always. There is safety and life in God's Word. Pray with me:
Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to taste the sweetness in Your Word and help me to become incurably addicted to knowing Your Word. Above all, may I be a doer of it and not just a hearer only. In Your mighty name, I pray. Amen.
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Amen, Owen. Stay safe.
Great advice, Owen. Thanks, and God bless you!
Thanks for today’s message! It gives me an inspiration on what to preach! The church here in Canada is dying for a lack of a commitment to Jesus and His word.
I was born in Africa and can speak Zulu.
Dear Owen,
I really appreciated your sequencing of scriptures and your explanation. Your writing kept my mind looking forward to and focused on what was next. Thank you very much.
Powerful and encouraging message in the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s devotional.
Thank you. and God’s richest blessings on you and your family in these difficult days all around the world.
(ON, Canada)
Thank you again for your encouragement for reading the Word of God and hiding it in our heart. I am sending it to a friend who has been fighting cancer and just finished his radiation treatments. I pray for him every day and send him the Daily Readings that I get on my computer — and he always responds so positively. He also has bees for his honey — so he will like the text as well.
Dear Owen.
I couldn’t agree with you more! Thank you very much for sharing to your love of God’s holy word.
I had a lovely phone call from one of our elders. We spoke of God and His mighty love for us. I find it so exhilarating to speak with believers about our Lord. It’s like cheerleading for the home team, only better.
God bless you in your walk with our Lord.
I say Amen to your prayer with you!
Owen, thank you for sharing your enthusiastic love of God’s word and desire to put it into practice. I am 11 days into my goal of reading the Bible in a year. I balance that “big picture” reading with some other more more meditative “chewing” on smaller passages at different points in my day. Your devotion today encourages me to keep up the steady diet.
God bless.
Hello Owen
God bless you daily more than you can imagine or hope for!!
I appreciate this devotion today and I love the scriptures used. Ezekiel is one that I received in a vision or whatever it would be called several years ago. Exciting, encouraging, and confirmation are some words I used to describe God’s word also.
Have a blessed 2021!!!
Thank you, Owen, for sharing the devotional with us. What one sees as apathy, or outright sin, in another, might just be someone who is floundering in a sea of trouble. That one needs loving outreach without condemnation…an act which belongs solely to God Almighty to exercise.
Our job as believers is to reach out in love…not condemn with disgust.
After all, isn’t that what our Lord did? My mother used to say that we attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. Nuff said. Again, thanks for writing. Blessings.
“Ask the Lord to give us a great love for it, and He will do that, because it is His will.”
This is an idea I have never before heard.
Thank you for it.