I keep feeding on the truths of the over and over. They gradually become more and more deeply ingrained deep within my heart. They become a part of my actual being, part of me. They take over my entire life. In the spiritual as well as the natural, you become what you eat.
It isn’t that I study things just to learn them as facts and doctrines. I feed on them and take them into my being where they become my strength and ability to live them. I renew my mind and replace the old thoughts and strongholds with truth – which as it takes hold in my heart makes me free and transforms my life into His image – and enables me to do the things that become part of me, things I have always wanted to do, things I have known I should do and tried so hard to accomplish.
The Word of God is the power of God unto my salvation. It enters my heart and becomes a part of me and gives me strength to do it.
James 1:21 – …His Word is able to save my soul as it takes hold of my heart.
The Word is spiritual food. I may eat it regularly – but I never, never should become tired of it! And I can never exhaust the nourishment I get from it. It is as deep and never-ending as God Himself. The Word is alive and feeds me and meets me where I am. It knows where my heart is and what thoughts are going through my mind and speaks to me based on this.
If I only ate something in the natural world until I knew how it tasted, I would starve. There are many foods I eat regularly. Most Christians live almost in a state of spiritual starvation (they only eat on Sundays and maybe Wednesdays. Or maybe they pull something out of their promise box at other times and get a taste of it). They try to live as God desires Christians to without taking in the nourishment and strength He has provided – and of course they fail more than prevail.
How can we live effectively as a Christian when we are not doing it in the way the Lord has provided – through Him in His strength and ability, through the knowledge of His Word, through the renewing of our minds and through fellowship with Him through the Spirit, through feeding the truth until it makes us free.
I don’t just study to learn facts and doctrines. I feed on the Words of God and take them into my being where they become my strength and ability to live them. They become a part of my actual being. I renew my mind, and God’s truths replace the old thoughts and strongholds – which as it takes hold in my heart makes me free and transforms my life into His image – and enables me to do the things that become part of me.
The Word of God is the power of God unto my salvation. It enters my heart and becomes a part of me and gives me strength to do it.
I must first hear a truth. Then I continue in the truth, too feed on it till it makes me free, till true faith comes, till it is an actual part of my being and becomes the strength to do it. Then it will work for me. (Romans 10:8-17; John 8:31-32)
James 1:21, 25 – …Humbly accept the Word implanted in you, which can save you. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it–he will be blessed in what he does.
It takes hold of my heart as I continue in it and saves my soul. The Word planted in my heart saves me. It isn’t what I know but what is implanted in my heart that I do as part of my life that gives me salvation. The Gospel is God’s power unto my salvation. It works when I know, understand and believe it.
The Word is the seed planted when I hear it, but through time it is nurtured and watered and tended to through my attention to it till it is rooted and grounded in my heart finally time for it to bear fruit.
