What's Your Appetite?

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2.15, ESV)

To those of you who know me, this may come as a bit of a shock, but I am not going to be talking about our appetite for food today…well at least not physical food. No, tonight I will be talking about our appetite for spiritual food. So without further hesitation, (beware! Corny food joke ahead) let’s dig in:

I know of many Christians that go throughout the week and the only time they ever read the bible (or even think about it), is on Sundays and sometimes Wednesdays (when they go). I was this same way before I came up here to bible school. Some weeks I would look at the word and study it but most of the time I was just content with not looking at it until Sunday morning rolled around. Folks, there is no reason to sugar coat it, so I’ll just come out and say it…there was a real problem with that mentality! My problem was that I didn’t have much of an appetite for the word. 

As I’ve gotten older I’ve made a conscious effort to study the word more and as a result my appetite has grown more. Any logical person can figure out that when appetite grows, so does food intake. That’s how our stomach works, and consequently that’s how our mind works as well! When we have a greater appetite for the word, we will study it more and more in order to fill that appetite! 

Have you ever noticed how much better you feel after you’ve eaten? If you’ve been desiring pizza all day, how wonderful is it when you finally get to scarf down that first piece? It feels good! The word of God works the same way friends! If you start to study the bible I guarantee that you will start to feel better! When you start to fill that spiritual appetite with study you, you in turn feel spiritually healthier! 

This week I want to encourage you all to dig deeper into the word! Some ways to do this might be by:

1)       Thinking of a subject and seeing how often and where that subject is addressed in the bible.

2)      Having a conversation with a friend concerning a passage in the bible that maybe you don’t understand.

3)      Picking a chapter and studying its context to see how what the writer is talking about, fits in with the entire rest of the book. 

I hope this week you will give one of these a try. Start of small and pace yourself with bible study. It’s a very good thing to study, but if you try to do too much, you may find yourself biting more off than you can chew. Try not to let another week go by, by starving yourself without the word, instead try and nourish your spiritual body with the word. Be filled, not famished! -Jack D.