Feed Your Spirit
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Feed Your Spirit
Feed Your Spirit
As we come to this time tonight to study, I want to bring your attention to God’s Word as our primary object of study. God has designed us as physical beings to need nourishment, and he has designed our spiritual being to need nourishment as well. Our spirit needs nourishment.
The Need
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
Psalm 119:
God has created us as Christians with a spiritual appetite. But all too often in the life of the Christian, there are other things that we are full of that are taking the place of our spiritual appetite. And those things leave us unsatisfied. Those things that the world feeds us were never meant to feed our soul. The ultimate joy of our life and the sustaining satisfaction in our life must be the creator of our soul. God must be the overarching pursuit in our life as our ultimate source of joy and satisfaction.
So, we need spiritual nourishment. We can agree on that, right?
There was a woman who came up to her pastor and she said she was so weak she could hardly get out of bed in the morning.
The pastor asked - are you ill? Do you feel sick?
No, I’m just so weak.
The pastor asked again - are you getting enough sleep?
Yes, but I’m still so weak.
The pastor finally replied - well I’m no doctor but what does your diet look like?
Well, on Sundays, if it’s not raining and my favorite team isn’t playing on TV then I go to a little restaurant down the road at 11 and eat a meal.
The pastor says - You mean that’s all you eat all weak is that one meal? No wonder you’re weak.
Folks, it’s no wonder some of us are spiritually weak. It’s no wonder some of us don’t have any spiritual zeal and drive. If we aren’t feeding ourselves regularly, then we will be weak spiritually.
How many of us miss more than one meal regularly? I don’t. Occasionally I will miss breakfast or lunch, but I very rarely miss both. We feed our body typically 3 times a day - Why do we starve our souls?
So, back to our verse.
I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
Let’s break this down a little bit.
It is God’s Word. It is His revelation to US. We need to read it to deepen our relationship with Him. He speaks to us through His Word.
What is this verse talking about?
It’s a daily plan of holiness for us.
Store Up The Word
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart,
for I am called by your name,
O Lord, God of hosts.
There is a great need for us to store up God’s Word in our hearts. This isn’t just an academic thing. This isn’t just reading to be reading. This is our spiritual food!
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
Let’s keep the food analogy going. If this is physical food we are talking about, most of us have a food pantry right? Why do you have a pantry? So you don’t have to run to the store every time you eat something right? You want to have enough milk or bread so you don’t have to leave the house every time you want to eat.
So, if we relate that spiritually we need to store God’s Word up in our lives like that food pantry. We need God’s Word stored up in our lives so that we can continually feed on it.
I have often related this to meditation. And when somebody hears the word meditation they often think of levitating with your legs crossed. And that is totally missing the point. Meditation is simply chewing on what you have read or heard and letting it sink in.
Meditation of scripture for the Christian is what chewing the cud is to the cow. The cow takes a bite of grass and they don’t swallow it immediately right? They chew it and chew it and chew it and chew it some more so they get ALL of the nutrients out of the grass and so digestion is easier.
What does that look like for us? Take a verse that means something to you and memorize it. As you memorize it, think about the words that you are memorizing. Think about each word and how it relates to you and your relationship with God.
Listen to just a few of the verses that talk about us meditating on God’s Word.
I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
Psalm 119:
Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Psalm
I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
You see, the Bible has much to say about our getting God’s Word deep into our hearts.
The Treasury of David, Volume 5: Psalms 111–119 Exposition of Verses 9–16
Here was the object aimed at. As one has well said,—Here is the best thing,—“thy word;” hidden in the best place,—“in my heart;” for the best of purposes,—“that I might not sin against thee.”
What if I don’t like to read the Bible?
This is a good question and it’s something that we can be honest with God about. I can promise you this… If you are a Christian, if you will start reading God’s Word frequently then God will MAKE it desirable to you. God will do that for you. He will make you DESIRE IT.
Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: (Vol. 5, p. 159). London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers.
And that’s important right? We must desire it. We must desire God’s Word over everything else in our lives. It must be THE driving force in our lives. And if we give ourselves to it, then God will enrich our lives because of it.
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
When the word is hidden in the heart the life shall be hidden from sin.
Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: (Vol. 5, p. 159). London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers.
Quantity & Quality
So, how do we do this practically?
We get alone with God and His Word regularly. We need to spend time with Him and meditate on His Word. There is no magic formula or complicated steps to storing God’s Word in our hearts. It is simply asking God to feed our souls by reading His Word.
I can promise you this also - If you will start this process, you will get to a point after a little while that you miss it if you don’t get to spend your Me & God time. It will be a disappointment to you if you don’t spend that time with Him.
If we want to live victorious Christian lives, and I’m assuming we all do - then we MUST SPEND TIME WITH GOD IN HIS WORD.
This is a NON-NEGOTIABLE to spiritual maturity. We cannot continue to be malnourished Christians.