2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Readers,
Have you ever wondered why you feel it is so important to believe in God? You are not alone. Throughout the history of mankind, every culture no matter how primitive or sophisticated has grappled with this question. We were created with a soul that needs spiritual nourishment just as our bodies need physical food and medicine to cure its ills. RO 1: 19-20 “God punishes [those who do evil], because what is known about God is plain to them for God Himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, His invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all [for their efforts to suppress the truth]!” What this citation is telling us is that God created us with a God-consciousness and with the ability to perceive what God has created. False teaching is evil and Satan-driven. Satan is the deceiver, whose greatest delight is to suppress the truth. God knows this and provides ample spiritual nourishment for us in the truths of the Scriptures to victoriously combat that. Our responsibility is to take the time to study and believe those truths.
When dealing with a question like this, it is always helpful to look at God’s sovereignty and our responsibility to it. God created us with a body that needs physical food and medicine to cure its ills. When it was time for the Jews to be led into the wilderness for 40 years, God wanted to teach them obedience so that His soul-food (righteous teachings) could be available to them. But, God also knew they would need food and water. His solution to this problem was to provide manna and the miracle of water from rocks. EX 16: 31 “The people of Israel called the food manna. It was like a small white seed, and tasted like thin cakes made with honey.” EX 17: 6 [The Lord said to Moses] “ ‘I will stand before you on a rock at Mount Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.’ Moses did so in front of the leaders of Israel.” Providing manna and water were the acts of a loving Abba. The extent of that love can be seen when you look at the context of this story. It happened at a place named Massah and Meribah which in Hebrew mean “testing and complaining.” The people had come to his place grumbling and attempting to test God for having brought them to a place where their creature comforts were not easily available. In spite of this unfaithful attitude, God provided them with their needs. Now, that’s love! Through Moses, God instructs the Israelites to collect only enough manna for one day, except on the day before the Sabbath, they are to collect enough for two days (EX 16). That was the people’s responsibility to God’s sovereignty. We all know how poorly they dealt with this responsibility at times when we read the story of the quails in NU 11: 31-34.
Our need to be feed by daily doses of the Scriptures is what propels me to write you these daily messages. They are food and medicine for our world-worn souls. Our loving Father understands this need we have and provides it for us, just as he provided manna and water for my ancestors in the wilderness. Just as they had the responsibility to follow God’s direction on how often and how much to gather manna, we have the responsibility to gain spiritual maturity and discernment from studying His Word. It is not enough just to study it, but we must also believe it and live by it. By doing so, we help God to feed others around us, i.e. to do His work through us.
When Paul was giving his instructions in Ephesians 5 about the roles of husbands and wives in marriage, he reminds us about one of Christ’s roles in our lives. EPH 5: 29 “No one every hates his own body; instead he feeds it and takes care of it, just as Christ does the church.” If we add up all the sum total of Christ’s teachings and ask ourselves how they feed the spirits of those who believe, the impact of this statement can be seen. Christ’s very incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection serve the crucial purpose of our salvation and redemption from a life in which sin has total sway over us. If that doesn’t convince us of God’s passionate love for us, nothing will! His desire to nourish those who believe is that of a parent who loves his/her child unconditionally and sees to that child’s every need.
When Paul wrote to his young assistant, Timothy, God led him to deal with both physical and spiritual nourishment. 1 TIM 4: 3 “ [The apostate] teach that it is wrong to marry and eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten after a prayer of thanks by those who are believers and have come to know the truth.” 1TIM 4: 8 “Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way, because it promises life for both the present and the future.” 1 TIM 4: 13, 16 “Until I [Paul] come, give your time and effort to the public reading of the Scriptures and to preaching and teaching.” “Watch yourself and watch your teaching. Keep on doing these things, because if you do, you will save both yourself and those who hear you.”
PRAYER: O Lord, we recognize Your love for us. You provide us with food for both the body and the soul. We dedicate ourselves to being good stewards of what You provide, so that through our obedience to You we can show you our faith in and love for You. Thank You for providing the Scriptures in which You reveal Yourself to us, give us direction for how to live our lives, and remind us of the great sacrifice of Your Son that You made in order that we could live eternally. In Christ’s name, amen.
I hope you are feeling as loved and nourished today as I do. The next time, we are in the mood to bemoan the difficulties of our circumstances (and in my case that’s more often than it should be), let’s join in putting our attention on the nourishment our loving Father is continually providing for us. Peter and I send a bushel of love and prayers for God’s peace to you.
Standing in awe of His perfect love,
Lynn