“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in that law doth he meditate day and night.” — Psalm 1:2
The Lord never intended for His Word to collect dust on a table in your back bedroom. When God’s people do not live in the Word, bad things happen. People paid for your right to own a Bible in your own language with their very lives. What are you doing about that?
Christians who own numerous Bibles that they rarely open are thumbing their noses at the saints of old who paid the ultimate price. This hard-won treasure lies buried under the dust and detritus of your life.
The Command to “Eat This Book”
The Lord’s plan calls for His people to live the Word and breathe His word, to read it and receive it inwardly, and to think about it regularly and practice it. He intended it to become part of the very marrow of their bones. Digest it. Assimilate it. Live it. And meditate upon it continually.
He even told people to “eat this book.”
Several times throughout biblical history, God told His faithful prophet to consume the book containing His words (Jeremiah 15:16; Ezekiel 2:3; 3:1-3; Revelation 10:9). The idea was to get His Word inside, to digest it as surely as one takes in meat and vegetables for nourishment and sustenance, and to grow thereby.
“I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” (Job 23:12)
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)
The image of taking in food and having it become part of your being is an apt metaphor for God’s children receiving the Word and assimilating it into our lives. Moses said it, Jesus quoted it, and no one has improved on that statement since.
Sadly, too few Christians are living that truth today. The typical evangelical Christian—in this country especially—has numerous Bibles but rarely takes one down to read.
The Horrendous Consequences of Neglect
When we do not live in the Word, the consequences are severe.
1. Their souls may be saved, but their minds remain pagan. The uninstructed Christian will approve that which God has forbidden, will teach what seems right to him, and will put stumbling blocks in the path of the truly righteous.
“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2).
2. They become sitting ducks for cults and false prophets. Without the Word, they fall for nutty schemes.
“These (Bereans) were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11).
