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INSPIRATION FOR LIVING>
NOT BY BREAD ALONE
June 9, 2008
America is literally eating herself to death. Too many of
her citizens are fast food junkies. The amount of
overweight and obese individuals greatly concerns health
officials, even though they say this problem is beginning
to level off.
I have visited many of our larger cities over the past 20
years. One thing I am always interested in, of course, is
the locations of some good eating places for lunch and
dinner. No matter where I go there seems to be no lack of
customers for eating out. As I write this article, however,
the national average of regular unleaded gasoline has
recently exceeded $4 per gallon, and that reality is
beginning to cut into the restaurant business.
The same thing exists in grocery stores. They seem to
always be crowded. I have even gone there late at night
thinking I can beat the crowd that way, and it seems as if
many other people were thinking the same thing. And if you
go there during a holiday weekend, the volume of food and
beer and soft drinks some people buy is almost sickening to
watch.
Now think for a moment. What would happen if Christians had
the same kind of appetite for the Word of God as they do
for physical food? I submit to you that this would
revolutionize the church. Sad but true, to many of us it is
unthinkable to go days without eating, except for a time of
fasting, but we can go days, even weeks without studying
the Word of God.
We are both physical and spiritual beings. Just as our
physical body needs food daily, our spirit also needs
spiritual food which we get from the Bible. After Jesus
had fasted forty days and nights, the enemy came to Him and
said, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones
be made bread” (Matthew 4:3). Jesus had the power to do
what the enemy requested that He do, and it was true that
Jesus was hungry. Yet did He not obey. Instead He replied,
“It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (verse
4).
Jesus knew it was not God but the devil who was speaking to
Him. In verse 10, He called the devil by name. Verse 1
states that “Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” Understanding His
mission, He refused to obey the enemy. More importantly,
Jesus introduced the idea of the Word of God being food for
us to live by.
The devil has not changed. It is still his scheme to have
us more focused on our flesh than on our spirit. He does
not regard the things that are of God but the things that
are of men, Jesus says (Matthew 16:23). The power of the
enemy’s temptations lies in the fact that they are aimed at
satisfying our flesh, and that’s hard for us to resist.
One reason we need a daily diet of the Word of God is
because faith comes by our hearing the Word of God (Romans
10:17). Faith is the only basis upon which we can walk with
God or please Him. The Bible is full of His promises. They
mean nothing, however, if we don’t believe them. Faith in
God’s promises lifts our vision beyond what is in our
mortal view, and focuses us on the awesome God and His
ability to meet whatever need we have in our life.
We also need to feed on the Bible because it is the only
way by which we can gain knowledge about God. His ways are
past finding out (Romans 11:33). That means we can’t go on
an expedition to find out about Him. The greatest of our
researchers cannot tell us one single thing about Him that
they have independently discovered. The only thing we know
about Him is what He reveals to us about Himself. And these
revelations are found exclusively in the Word of God. One
thing that troubles me greatly is some of the recent laws
of our land that have been passed because they reveal great
ignorance about God, and eventually they will come back to
haunt us. Another sad truth is that many people attend
church on Sundays worshiping a God they do not know.
A third reason we need the Word of God is so we can grow
spiritually. No matter how long we have been walking with
God the more we study His Word the more it will challenge
us. The more we will see where we fall short. Christ is our
standard. He is the one we must strive to become like. The
Bible is God’s prescription for how we are to get there. We
will never fully reach that objective in this life, but our
walk with God should be progressive. Each year we should be
more like Christ than the year before. The Bible is our
perfect guide for growing thusly.
Back in 1995, I saw the results a poll done by the American
Bible Society. According to it, 92 percent of the
respondents said they owned one Bible or more, but only 18
percent of them said they were very familiar with the
Bible, 53 percent said somewhat, and 29 percent said they
were “not at all” familiar. Eighty-seven percent said they
believed the Bible is the revealed Word of God, but only 59
percent of these said they personally turn to the Bible for
advice.
In a separate study done by the Christian group Barna
Research in 2006, 48 percent of all adults agreed strongly
that the Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings
compared with 42 percent in 2002 and 35 percent in 1991.
Twelve percent of born again Christians did not agree that
the Bible was totally accurate in all of its teachings.
Consider the following verse: “As newborn babes, desire the
sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby” (1 Peter
2:2). The word “sincere” here means unadulterated. So to
grow we must have a desire or appetite, and we need
wholesome spiritual food. Based on the studies above, not
every believer believes that the Bible is the inerrant Word
of God, and even among those who do, their belief does not
necessarily translate into a strong appetite for the Bible.
Jesus told the devil that we live by “every word”
proceeding from God’s mouth (Matthew 4:4). Perhaps all of
us have our favorite book or books of the Bible, but for
wholesome growth we must study the entire Bible. Then some
believers think that since we are under the New Testament
the Old Testament does not apply to us. But God’s truths
endure forever. Still others concentrate on the teachings
that support their convictions about prosperity or healing
and miracles, etc.
Imagine what shape our physical bodies would be in if we
neglected important food groups just because we did not
like them. This would have a negative impact on our
physical development. Similarly, our study of the Bible
ought to be done in a systematic way that assures us that
we are reading through the entire Bible, not just selected
portions. Everything God says or has inspired men to pen in
the Bible is wholesome food for us to grow by.
Frank King
www.efrankking.com
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