What's So Amazing About Scripture?نموونە

Food for our Soul

Scripture is amazing—it is a river, a light, the breath of God, seed, rain, and a foundation. It’s also food for our souls.

If we truly desire spiritual health and vitality, feeding daily on God’s Word is as beneficial and necessary as food is for our physical health. Job said, “I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily food.” (Job 23:12) The Bible is bread for our souls—substantial, sustaining, satisfying—without which, we cannot fulfill our purpose. In various verses it is also likened to milk, meat and honey: a three-course meal; containing the ideal nourishment for every stage of our spiritual development. 

In the 8th century BC, the shepherd Amos prophesied about “a famine not for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord.” (Amos 8:11) The Israelites had rejected the prophets in their midst who delivered God’s Word to them. What a tragedy then that, with more Bibles in print and on screens today than ever, the world and even many Christians are so spiritually malnourished. Though it is within reach, we opt instead to seek the light and truth we so need in all the wrong places—from so-called "experts" or a recent philosophical trend or the latest buzz on our social media feeds. As exciting as new insights may be, they are a poor substitute for God’s own words. 

In the Exodus, God led the rescued Israelites across a desert and supernaturally fed them. Every morning God poured out a sweet, bread-like substance called manna on the ground, which each family would daily gather up.  After decades of eating manna, Moses preached to the desert-survivors about its meaning: “God fed you on manna so that you might know that man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from God’s mouth.” (Deuteronomy 8:3) 

Every day, God's manna awaits our collection. Like the ancient Israelites, we also must discover that his manna does not fall into our mouths—we must go and gather it, each and every day. As we do so, we can expect the words we ingest to metabolize into the energy we need to live a God-empowered life.