When I was growing up, one of the things I looked forward to each November was our Thanksgiving dinner, because my mom would prepare a great big, delicious meal. She would make some of my favorite dishes that I was very excited about eating.
The turkey was always good, but I looked forward to the corn, mashed potatoes, and especially the fruit salad. This fruit salad was prepared only for special occasions like big holidays. It had chopped apples, bananas, cherries, and raisins, and it was dressed with whipped cream. The juice from the cherries gave the whipped cream a beautiful cherry-red color. After eating this delicious meal and enjoying this festive fruit salad, I would be filled and blessed. Likewise, when we feast on the satisfying truths of God’s Word, our hearts can be filled and blessed with God’s abundance.
We’ll take a look at what God’s Word says about the truth we can feast on in our daily lives. Next, we’ll consider some practical ways to help us feast on the Word. And finally, we will see that as we keep our heart filled with His Word, we will abound with blessings.
We can fill up with the Word each and every day.
Colossians 3:16:
Let the word of [pertaining to] Christ dwell in you [in your mind] richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
God’s Word bears good fruit in our lives, so we want to allow that Word to dwell in our mind. We allow our mind to soak it up. Have you ever taken a dry sponge and put it under a water faucet? The sponge soaks up the water right away and then holds the water until it is squeezed out. Just as that sponge is filled with water, we fill our mind by saturating it with God’s Word. We allow the Word to dwell richly in our mind.
Another way to understand this is to be “at home” with God’s Word. To be at home with His magnificent Word is to be comfortable with it. If we are comfortable with something, we tend to enjoy it and spend time with it.
Psalms 119:11:
Thy word have I hid in mine heart….
We desire to fill up with the truth of the Word so that we can live life to the fullest. We hide it deeply in our heart and retain it in our mind. When we allow that Word to dwell deeply in our heart, it becomes easy to recall. By keeping the commandments of God in our heart, we can live with power and manifest God’s abundance in every category of life.
Proverbs 4:4,21-23:
…Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.
Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
God’s desire for each of us is to keep His Word in our heart so that we can receive the blessings that He has for us. With God’s Word, we can live life dynamically and abundantly.
God’s Word was the joy and rejoicing of the Prophet Jeremiah’s heart. He feasted on the words of God’s Word. We can do the same—we can fill our heart with the Word of Truth and be full of joy and rejoicing!
Jeremiah 15:16:
Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart….
Let’s take a look at what God says about His Word in Psalm 19.
Psalms 19:9 and 10:
…the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
The Word of God is so valuable that it is to be desired more than gold. This speaks very loudly to me because I like gold jewelry. Most of my gold jewelry was given to me by my husband on special occasions. Since this jewelry is made of gold, I take very good care of it. When I remove it at the end of the day, I keep it in a specific location so that I can enjoy it the next day.
God says that His Word is to be desired more than gold. I know how much I like my gold jewelry, and I can understand that my desire for the riches of God’s Word is to be much greater than that.
Now that we have a clearer picture of how we can desire to spend time in the Word, we can look at some of the many resources available at our fingertips. The Bible is our greatest resource….
This is an excerpt from the September/October 2009 issue of The Way Magazine.
Copyright© 2009 by The Way International. All rights reserved.
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