July 15, 2024

Jeremiah 15.16 (NIV)

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty.

Have you ever thought about how amazing it is to have daily access to the Word of God?*

Jeremiah was so delighted by God’s words that he gobbled them up. He gladly received the message from God as a starving man would consume food. The Word of God, like food when eaten, becomes part of you. It circulates throughout your body and fuels all your functions and activities.

 

Think of the most delicious food you ever tasted. Think of how it felt in your mouth. How you savored every bite. How satisfied you felt after eating it. And how you wished you were alone so you could lick the dish! Now think of that food having no calories! Would that not qualify it as a joy and a delight?

God’s word is like food. Food on the shelf in the pantry does not provide nourishment. You have to prepare it and eat it for it to do your body any good. In order for God’s word to nourish us, we have to “eat” it. More than that, we need to “cultivate a taste for it.”* We can’t be like those people who eat only because they have to; who don’t crave food like the rest of us. We should hunger for the words of God, for they are “food to souls, sweet, savoury, wholesome, nourishing, and strengthening.”*

His talk . . . about ‘eating’ His flesh and ‘drinking’ His blood is a dramatic way of saying that His followers must partake of His life and character in order to share in the eternal life which He came to provide.*