Eat The Word | Women Armed and Ready in the Spirit

Eating food satisfies our hunger and nourishes us. Without eating, we simply can’t continue to exist.

In the same way, for believers to be healthy and grow in the divine life we need to eat spiritual food. But what is the food for our spiritual life?

God gave His Word to us to be our spiritual food. So even more than studying the Bible, we actually need to “eat” it. Nothing is more important to our Christian life than our being nourished with the Word of God. Biblical knowledge can’t help us if we’re spiritually famished, and consequently weak and dying. God’s primary concern for us is that we would be living and growing by eating the Word of God as our food.

How do we know the Bible was given to us to be our food?

1) By verses such as these in the Bible:

1 Peter 2:2—“As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation.”
1 Timothy 4:6—“Being nourished with the words of the faith.”

“Milk” and “nourished” are words related not to study, but to food. They show us God intended His Word to be our food.

2) By testimonies of people in the Bible:

In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah said, “Your words were found and I ate them.”
In the New Testament, the apostle John also testified in Revelation 10 that he ate the words of God.

3) By the word of the Lord Jesus Himself:

Matthew 4 gives us the account of the Lord being tempted by the devil. In verse 4 Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

Jesus plainly told us that just as we live on physical bread, we are to live on God’s words, our spiritual bread.

I Have Esteemed The Words Of His Mouth More Than My Necessary Food!

Job 23:12

The apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16 said this:

“All Scripture is God-breathed.”

The Bible is the very breath of the living God; being God’s breath, it is of life and can impart life to us.

And in John 6:63 the Lord Jesus told us, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

The Word of God is spirit and life; because His words are life, they can give life to us.

Coming to the Bible as food

God gave us His Word, the Bible, not to be our textbook, but to be our food. It’s full of life, having been breathed out by God Himself, and His words give life.

Whether we end up empty and unsatisfied after we’ve read or studied the Bible depends on whether we come to the Bible as life-giving, nourishing food or not. If we view the Bible simply as a book from which we can accumulate biblical knowledge, and we don’t get to the Spirit and life in the Word of God, we won’t receive the nourishment we need to grow in God’s life and to live a normal, healthy Christian life.

Every time we come to the Word, we need to exercise our spirit to touch the Spirit, who gives life, in the Word. In this way, we’ll experience being satisfied and enlivened when we come to the Bible as food, as God intended.

How To Eat The Word Of God

When it comes to the Bible, we’re familiar with words like “read” and “study.” But we might not be accustomed to the word “eat.”

“Eating the Bible” may sound strange to us, yet God gave us His Word to be our spiritual food. So though we may read and study God’s Word, if we don’t eat it as food, we’ll be spiritually hungry and, as a result, weak in our Christian life.

An illustration

Let’s say we haven’t eaten for a while; we’re really hungry and even faint from the lack of food. Suddenly, we catch a whiff of a delectable aroma floating by It’s a pleasant scent, but we remain as hungry as ever. Smelling the aroma of food isn’t enough. We have to get to the food and eat it to be satisfied and strengthened.

Being inspired by something we read in the Bible is kind of like smelling a delectable aroma. It’s not that we get nothing at all; we just aren’t satisfied; nothing spiritually “sticks to our ribs.” To eat the Word of God, we have to go further and deeper.

Using the right organ

Our nose is the right organ to use to smell the aroma of food, but we can’t eat food with our nose. And we certainly can’t eat food with our ears or our eyes. Our mouth is the right organ for eating food. We have to open our mouth, take the food in, chew it, swallow it, and even digest it. All of this may be very obvious, but we must realize that to “eat” the Word of God also requires us to use the right organ.

We may be used to exercising our mind to learn something or our emotion to feel something when we open the Bible. But neither our mind nor our emotion is the right organ for eating the Word of God.

The right organ for eating the Bible is our spirit, our deepest part. Our human spirit, which is deeper than our mind or emotion, is our “eating” organ.

Exercising our spirit

By themselves, the words in the Bible are only black and white letters, and if we use only our mind to understand them, that’s all they’ll ever be to us—letters, even dead letters. The knowledge we acquire from them may even cause us to be proud, puffing us up.

But in the Word of God is the Spirit, and the Spirit gives life. So for the Bible to become the food that fills our inner hunger and enlivens us, we need to touch the Spirit in the Word of God. We do this by exercising, or using, our spirit.

Our human spirit was created by God to contain and contact God. It is uniquely qualified to contact the Spirit in the Word. So above all, above studying, memorizing, reading, or expounding, we must exercise our spirit to “eat” the Word of God.

How do we exercise, or use, our spirit? We exercise by prayer. Just as we exercise our feet by walking, we exercise our spirit by praying.

The Spirit, the Word, prayer, and our spirit

Exercising our spirit, our eating organ, by praying is the way we eat the Word of God. Ephesians 6:17-18 puts the Spirit, the Word, prayer, and our spirit together:

"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—"

These verses makes it clear that we are to receive the Spirit in the Word of God by means of all prayer, praying every time in our spirit.

When we exercise our spirit by prayer to touch the Spirit in the Word, we go beyond the black and white letters of the Bible to touch the living Word that nourishes and supplies us for our Christian life. This is to eat the Word of God.

How do we use our spirit by prayer to eat the Word of God?

To eat the Word of God by exercising our spirit by prayer, it helps to pray aloud. It isn’t that God can’t hear silent prayers, but praying aloud helps us to exercise our spirit more strongly, focus on the Word, and be less distracted by thoughts in our mind.

Praying even before we open the Bible is also helpful: “Lord, I come to You in Your Word. Lord, help me to exercise my spirit right now to take Your Word as food. Feed me, Lord, in Your Word.”

Then we open the Bible. Perhaps we’ve been reading through the New Testament and have arrived at John 1. As we read, we don’t need to be concerned about what we can and can’t understand. This is a time for eating, so we should just concentrate on exercising our spirit to take in the Word.

For example, as we read John chapter 1, we can read until we come to a verse we can somewhat understand and that gives us a delectable aroma, or inspiration. Since that verse “smells” so good, we stop and pray with that verse in a simple way. Let’s say we stop at verse 4:

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

We might pray, “Lord Jesus, in Him, in You, is life. And Lord, You’re in me! Oh, thank You, now that I have You, I have life. Lord, keep me enjoying You as life all day today. And praise You, Lord, You are the light of men. Oh Lord, You are my light. Shine, Lord, over all my heart. Don’t let me be in any darkness.”

Perhaps as we’re “eating” the Word about light, the Lord may suddenly shine on a sin we were previously unaware of. We can pause and confess that sin right away, be cleansed, and continue our eating.

Then we can continue to read until a verse strikes our spirit again, stopping to pray spontaneously with what arises from our heart and our spirit. We don’t need to feel compelled to finish the chapter, or even the section. This time in the Word is for eating, not for reading a set amount. We can take our time to eat by reading and praying, praying and reading.

As we thank the Lord with His Word, praise Him with it, repeat it back to Him, and pray with it without any formula or set way, we enjoy spiritual food. We can be free from being formulaic or ritualistic, from praying the same prayers every time. In fact, we may pray with the same exact verse many times in our lives, and each time it would be different. This is because the Spirit is living, and when we pray not in a routine, habitual way, but with our spirit exercised, we contact the living Spirit in the Word.

Take time to eat

We should read the Bible regularly, even daily, for our whole lives. We also should study the Word of God and seek to understand it. But in order to be nourished with the divine life of God and grow in that life, we also need to come to His Word to eat it by reading and praying with it.

When we take time to go beyond mentally touching the black and white letters of the Word, but instead exercise our spirit, our deepest part, to touch the life in the Word, we’re inwardly satisfied. By speaking to the Lord in a simple, genuine way with His Word, the Bible becomes spirit and life to us, enlivening us and satisfying our hunger.

The entire Bible is a living prayer book, a feast full of food to nourish us as we exercise our spirit to eat it. Thank the Lord for such a wonderful feast! When it comes to the Bible, we’re familiar with words like “read” and “study.” But we might not be accustomed to the word “eat.”

Adapted from: https://blog.biblesforamerica.org/the-bible-as-our-spiritual-food/