Bible Study "Man Shall Not Live By Bread Alone" - The Absolute Necessity of Feeding on God's Word.

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Tenchi

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Matthew 4:4
4 But he answered, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”


The word of God, the Bible, is special. And it's vital to spiritual living. No Christian can do without regular "feasting" upon Scripture. Any Christian who persistently neglects God's word demonstrates in doing so that they are far from God, spiritually malnourished, and easy prey for the devil. The born-again believer who is walking well with God finds a natural and intense delight in His word to them.

Jeremiah 15:16
16 Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.

Psalm 19:7-10
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether.
10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.


Is this how you feel about the Bible? Is it the joy and delight of your heart? Is Scripture sweeter than honey to you, more desirable than much gold? If not, there is something badly awry between you and the Author of Scripture.

When you love the divine Author of the Bible with all of your being, as He has commanded you to do (Matthew 22:36-38), when you're living in constant, conscious, daily submission to Him and the life of the Spirit is filling you up more and more as a result (Romans 6:13-22; Romans 12:1; James 4:7-10; Galatians 5:22-23; 2 Corinthians 3:18), the "Law of the Lord," His precepts, commandments and judgments, bring wisdom, enlightenment and joy. They reveal God to you; they explain his mind, character and will to you; they show you how best to live; they expose the sinful hindrances to fellowship with God that lie within you. All these things serve to bring God into focus, to stabilize, and direct, and clarify your fellowship with the One you love with all of your soul, mind and strength.

If, however, you're like a pastor I once heard confess to not having studied the Bible for months; if you give only cursory attendance to Scripture, reading it only briefly and soon forgetting what you read; if the "milk" of the word holds little interest for you, understand that this is a clear indication that your "walk" with God is in serious trouble.

Psalm 119:9-11
9 How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.
10 With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments.
11 Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.

If it is by keeping God's word (which requires first knowing it), if it is by treasuring the word of God in one's heart that one avoids sin, what will be the case for one who is careless and neglectful of God's word?

Psalm 119:104-105
104 From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

If it is from God's precepts, given in His word, that one recognizes the "false way," if God's word is a "lamp and light" to one's "path" through life, what must be the result of giving short shrift to study of God's word?

1 Peter 2:1-2
1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,


If it is by feeding on the "milk" of God's word that one grows spiritually, what will the consequence be if one doesn't feed on it?

2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.


If what Paul wrote to Timothy is true, if the Bible is "profitable" for all of the things he listed - teaching, reproof, correction, righteousness - and one knows and cares little for Scripture, how will one be "complete" spiritually and "equipped for every good work"?

Horribly, there are, at least in my experience, many, many people claiming to be followers of Jesus Christ, born-again Christians, whose knowledge and understanding of God's word is almost nil. Or, they have an enormously expansive but very superficial knowledge of Scripture; they are like the mile-wide puddle that's only an inch deep. They can tell you arcane facts about the OT Hittites, or will share some odd tidbit concerning ancient Jewish shepherding practices, or point out that the Bible was not written originally in the verse-chapter format we are so used to today; they will assure you that, via hundreds of Bible studies, and seminars, and conferences, they know the truth of God's word very well. But when you ask them to explain what it is to walk in the Spirit, or what the crucified life is, or to recite twenty Bible verses from memory, or without reference to Strong's Concordance, give you chapter and verse on, say, the deity of Christ, there is nothing but slogans, catch-phrases and profound uncertainty.

As a consequence, the Church, at least in the West, is filled with biblically-ignorant and thus spiritually-juvenile believers whose collective effect upon the Church is to make it desperately weak, corrupt and dark. But this effect upon the Church merely echoes what is true of their lives individually; the "leaven" they bring into the Church is well-established in their own daily living.

What can be done? Well, the answer isn't for Bible-neglecting Christians to just make themselves better students of God's word. God has made us to flee pain and pursue pleasure; we are most powerfully moved by desire, either to escape hurt, or for gratification of some sort. In short, we either do what we love to do, or we do what we have to do. For example, I love my wife and so, I pursue life with her, day-by-day building my relationship with her in a variety of ways. I also visit the dentist occasionally. Unlike my wife, I don't much care for my dentist. But I see him, nonetheless, my desire to avoid the pain of bad dental health compelling me to do so. In one degree or another, in one way or another, my life is ordered by either negative or positive desire.

Continued below.
 
And so, God's First and Great Commandment to me isn't to study my Bible. No, His First and Great Commandment to me addresses my motivation for being His child, speaking to me on the level of my desire. If I don't positively desire God, if I don't love Him, I can't pursue Him in the way He intends that I should. Paul the apostle wrote very directly about this:

1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.


God doesn't want me dealing with Him as I do my dentist. He commands me, instead, to interact with Him on the basis of an over-riding, positive desire - a love - for Him and on no other basis. Because only such love for God, such desire, is sufficient to propel me into the sort of the life He made me to have with Himself.

When I pursue God on the basis of a positive, over-riding desire for Him, I set aside whatever I must, I make all required sacrifices, I endure whatever hardships, joyfully and consistently because the result of doing so is deeper fellowship with my Maker, whom I love. The common alternatives just don't work: Fear is not focused on God but is fixed on protecting myself (from Him); obligation is not centered on God, but on evening the score, on discharging my debt to Him; self-righteousness turns me from my holy Creator and Lord to my own piety and religious excellence, and so on. No, only a love for God will do when it comes to walking rightly with Him.

If I don't have any such desire, such love, for God, how in the world do I get it? Am I supposed to just force myself to love Him as I should? Is there maybe some psychological trick I can use to manipulate myself into loving Him? No. God doesn't want "love" of this sort. The only love He desires from us is the love He has given to us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. That love is exactly of the kind God commands us to have for Him. But it ONLY comes from the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22; Romans 5:5; 2 Timothy 1:7).

Every Christian has the Holy Spirit inside of them, though. If he's really there, shouldn't they be loving God as a result? Why do so many Christians find their love for God so lukewarm, or even cold? Why are things like Bible study, and prayer, and holy living such onerous things for so many Christians, if the Holy Spirit has "shed abroad the love of God in their hearts"?

The answer is always the same: They aren't living in daily, conscious submission to the will and way of God. The Holy Spirit isn't going to force the Christian to love God; he isn't going to make the Christian study God's word; he isn't going to coerce the Christian into living a holy life. The born-again person isn't the Holy Spirit's puppet. Only as the child of God consciously, explicitly and persistently yields to God's will and way, to the Spirit's control, will he progressively fill them with who he is.

Romans 6:13
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Romans 6:19
19 ...For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Romans 8:14
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Romans 12:1
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

James 4:6-10
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

1 Peter 5:6
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

So, if you are neglectful of God's word, treating it casually, having little to no desire for it, understand that this attitude toward the Bible is just symptomatic of other, deeper spiritual issues the remedy for which won't be found in simply forcing yourself to study Scripture. But the longer you remain in a condition where you are starved of God's word, the father from Him you'll be migrating, the more your life will be compromised spiritually (and morally), and the more susceptible you'll be to the lying and destructive temptations of the devil. A neglect of the Bible is a dire thing, then, that no Christian who wants to know and walk with God well can afford to maintain.

Psalm 1:1-3
1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
 
The word became flesh = Jesus
Jesus became life giving Spirit
Jesus enters us if we open the door
We sup with Him
The spiritual gifts (word of Knowledge word of wisdom etc.) speak to others to let them know God is in us.

The New Jerusalem is coming out of Heaven.

Mississippi redneck
eddif