Feeding On The Word

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart" — Jeremiah 15: 16.

Here you have three things. The finding of God’s word. This only comes to those who seek diligently for it. Then the eating. This means the personal appropriation for our own sustenance, the taking up into our being the words of God. “But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. ‘Matthew 4:4 and then the rejoicing, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:4 there we have the finding, the appropriating, and the rejoicing. “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.”

Eating here is the central thought. It is preceded by the searching and finding: it is accompanied and followed by the rejoicing. It is the only aim and use of the one; it is the only cause and life of the other. In the secrecy of the inner chamber how much depends on this- I did eat them!

To realise the difference between this and the finding of God’s words, compare the corn a man may have stored in his granary, with the bread he has on his table. All the diligent labour he has bestowed in sowing and harvesting and garnering his grain, all the rich reward he has had for his care, cannot profit him, except as he feeds on the daily portion of the bread his body requires. In the finding, the harvesting and garnering, the greater the quantity and the speedier the work—these were the things to be looked at. In the eating, the very opposite takes place—here it is the small quantity, and the slow and unceasing continuance, that characterises an appropriation.

Do you see the application of this to your Scripture study in the morning watch? You need to find God’s words, and by careful thought to master them, so as to have them stored in mind and memory for your own use, and great joy, the joy of harvest or of victory; the joy of treasure secured, or difficulties overcome: and yet we must remember this finding and possessing the words of God is not yet that eating of them which alone brings Divine life and strength to the soul.

The fact of being occupied with, and possessing good wholesome corn, will not nourish a man. The fact of being deeply interested in the knowledge of God’s word will not in itself nourish the soul. ‘Your words were found” that was the first thing. “And I ate them” which brought joy and rejoicing.

And what is this eating? The corn which the husbandman had grown and rejoiced in as his very own, could not nourish his life until he took it up and ate it, and so completely assimilated it, that it became part of himself, entering into his blood, forming his very bone and flesh. This has to be done in a small quantity at a time, two or three times a day, every day of the year. This is the law of eating. It is not the interest or success of my Bible study; it is not the increased clearness of view or largeness of grasp I am obtaining that secure the health and growth of the spiritual life. By no means. All this often leaves nature very much unsanctified and spiritual, with very little of the holiness or humility of Christ Jesus: something else is needed. Jesus said: My food is to do the will of him who sent me.

Taking a small portion of God’s word, some definite command or duty of the new life, quietly receiving it in to the will and the love of the heart, yielding the whole being to its rule, and vowing, in the power of the Lord Jesus, to perform it: this, and then going to do it, this is eating the word, taking it into our inmost being, that it becomes a consistent part of our very life. The same with truth, or a promise; what you have eaten now becomes part of yourself, and you carry it with you wherever you go as part of the life you live.

You see at once how the two points of difference between the corn in the granary and the bread on the table, cover all your Bible Study. The gathering of scripture knowledge is one thing. The eating of God’s word, the receiving into your heart by the power of the life- giving Spirit, is something very different.

And you see how the two laws of eating food, in contrast to those of finding it, must always be obeyed. You can gather and garner grain to last for years. You cannot swallow a large enough quantity of bread to last for days. Day by day, and more than once a day, you take your day’s food. And so the eating of God’s word must be in small portions, just as much as the soul can each time receive and digest. And this, day by day, from one end of the year to the other.

It is such feeding on the word which will enable me to say: “Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” George Muller says that he learned that he ought not to stop reading the Word until he felt happy in God: then he felt fit to go out to his day’s work.