Jeremiah 15:16: “Your words were found, and I ate them, / And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; / For I am called by Your name, / O LORD God of hosts.”

July 13th, 2021 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Jeremiah was telling God, “I read Your word, Lord. I believed You, and it changed my heart.” Several have suggested that the slang phrase “soul food” is a great picture of what the word of God really is to a believer. We recognize that God’s word provides the nourishment that His disciples need if they’re to grow. As we slowly digest and absorb the word of God, through quiet reflection in our hearts, we receive the nutrition we need to face the new day. Wise believers down through the ages have prayed and asked God to continually give them an increasing desire, hunger, and taste for His word. In the New Testament, the Apostle Peter tells us: “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby” (1 Pet. 2:1–2).

There is an old story of a Scottish miner, who every day after coming home from the pit, would bath, change his clothes, and then pour over his well-worn Bible. One day he had a visitor who asked, “Where are you gleaning today?” “Romans 8,” the miner replied. Several weeks later the visitor came again, and finding the miner still in Romans 8, exclaimed, “You were digging into that chapter when I came to see you some weeks ago.” “Aye, sir,” replied the miner. “I’m sinking a shaft here.”

Reformer Martin Luther said, “The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me.”

“LORD, please give us a greater hunger for Your word this day and in the days ahead we ask, in Jesus’ name.”