And I Ate Them...

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. - Jeremiah 15:16


Ever since the start of summer, this has been my favorite verse. I have loved picking it apart, basking in its words and implications, and trying to graft it into my heart. There is so much significance packed into these few words. I want to share what I have found so far...

God's Word is not an optional user manual for the Christian life. It is not a set of good platitudes to live by. It is our very sustenance. When we find God's words the passage tells us we are to eat them; take them in, digest and process them for our use. In doing so we find them to be sweet, nurishing, and relevant to our needs; a joy. We find them to be delightful to our hearts, not arbitrarily, but because of their deep message and Truth: We are called by the God of Hosts, the Lord who cannot be thwarted or denied. Names have power, and through imbibing God's Word we find that because of Christ we are united to Him and brought into that most powerful Name in the universe. Our very identity is in his name, and he is the one who is calling us into a relationship with him. While I was dead in sin, his words brought me to life, gave me a heart to love him and others, and secured me in consumate fellowship with him forever!

When tempted in the wilderness to turn stones to bread, Jesus rebukes Satan by quoting for Deuteronomy 8:3, "Man shall not live by bread alone,but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Here Jesus bluntly tells us that the words of God are a daily need of our souls. The very nature of humanity is to need nurishment and man needs not only physical bread but spritual bread to survive. So often we treat the scriptures as a dainty dessert to be sampled on special occasions; Jesus demands that they be a daily nessesity for our vitality and the only way to truly grow; the source and sustainance of life.

Jesus himself is our bread, for he is the Word of God incarnate (John 1). After he fed the 5000, the people came running to him to try and secure more free food from his hand. They argued that if Jesus was from God and would feed them again, then they would believe him. "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." (John 6:31-35) In contrast to the manna from God that would rot after a day, Jesus, the Bread of Life offers himself imperishable to the people, if only they believe his message.

However, like the manna, God's mercy to us in Christ is new every morning. "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.' (Lamentations 3:22-24) God's grace and mercy do not come to us as a once and for all thing when we become Christians, there is a day by day dispensation of grace to his children that is exactly fitted to our needs at the time. That is why in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." This includes not only our physical needs, but our spiritual needs as well, and the way we are filled with spiritual food is through the Word.

What do you delight in? What is the food that is fueling your life? I am always running after rotting trash to fill my belly, which leads to pain and death. How often I overlook the precious Word of life. I pray that we may find his words, and that in doing so we would be gripped with their intrinsic beauty. That we would find delight and riches to feast our souls on. For we are called by such a lovely, need-fulfilling, hope-accomplishing, death-conquering Provider.