When I found your words, I devoured them; you words made me glad, they gave me joy; because, Adonai–Tzva’ot, you had me bear your name. ~ Jeremiah 15:16, Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

Anyone who has to drink milk is still a baby, without experience in applying the Word about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by continuous exercise to distinguish good from evil. ~ Hebrews 5:13-14, CJB

What has the Bible done for you lately?  Has the Word of God always rung true for you, or have you experienced a time when the Word of God had a hollow ring? Has any preacher ever fed you with a solid, hearty Word of God, or have you only eaten some liquefied or sugar-coated substitute passed off as the genuine Word of God?

Just as solid physical food is necessary for the growth and the development of your physical body, as well as for the maintenance of your physical life, physical health, and physical well being, the Word of God is your solid spiritual food, which is necessary for the growth and the development of your supernatural spirit, as well as for the maintenance of your spiritual life, spiritual health, and spiritual well being. If you did not need nourishment (natural food for your body and spiritual food for your spirit), then Christ Jesus would not have told Satan: “…The Tanakh says, ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of ADONAI’” (Matthew 4:4, CJB; the red lettering is this blogger’s emphasis; see also Luke 4:4, ESV).

For sure, the Protestant Bible is that Word, which comes from the mouth of God, because this Bible is God-breathed (God-inspired; see 2 Timothy 3:16). This Bible includes the Hebrew Old Testament, which closely corresponds with the Jewish Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), and this Bible includes the Greek New Testament. Since this Bible is that Word, which comes from the mouth of God, this Bible also is His revelation to you about Father God being the ONLY true living God.

Equally important is the fact that, because biblical instructions are needed first and foremost for your spiritual life, spiritual health, and spiritual well being, this is the reason why the Word of God indisputably provides prepared, processed and semi-processed, protected (from contamination) prepackaged Holy Spirit sealed spiritual food that is labeled with every conceivable safe, essential, and rich spiritual nutrient so that you will know that you are feeding your individual spirit its spiritual necessities. Spiritual food, thus, consists of spiritual milk (the basic plan of salvation, justification, sanctification, resurrection, glorification, judgment, and so on); spiritual daily bread (the amount of the Word of God that is necessary to support your spiritual life’s growth, spiritual life’s health, and spiritual life’s well being); spiritual meat (your spiritual maturity, or spiritual development/understanding, that goes beyond the basic tenets of faith); and spiritual fruit (a description of who and what you “grow” into; the sense of becoming more and more Christ-like; in other words, you “grow” into a spiritually mature loving, joyful, peaceable, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-disciplined believer).

Furthermore, the Word of God’s abundant spiritual nutrients guarantee that the spiritual food you are feeding your individual spirit is that which lasts forever (cf. John 6:27). Without a doubt, there is no use-by-date (or recommended last date for consumption) marked anywhere on your spiritual food, because the Word of God, which Protestant believers refer to as the Bible, is eternal.

Lastly, the Bible is replete with a variety of answers to ALL of your questions pertaining to who you are in Christ Jesus. The Bible also is full of amplified, mystified, and simplified wise principles that are necessary for your daily living. It is these  wise principles that help you to know when, where, and how to apply the spiritual food you have consumed.

So, again, the question is:  What has the Bible done for you lately? As your Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual that is full of basic instructions before leaving Earth, the Bible primarily should be guiding or directing your steps, for Psalm 119:105 says that God’s “…word is a lamp for [your] foot and light on [your] path” (CJB; the inserted bracketed words are this blogger’s emphasis).

As your Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual, the Bible also contains full and complete instructions on how to live your life here on Earth, as you prepare for an eternal life with Father God in Heaven. As your Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual, the Bible additionally teaches you about how to become a child of God by receiving the gift of Salvation by Grace through Faith (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9). Thus, Salvation is The Designer’s master plan that, even though it cost Creator God and His only begotten Son very much, Creator God freely gives His gift of Salvation to you to demonstrate His immeasurable Love for you, to bring you Joy, to give your heart delight, and to motivate you to become all that He intends for you to be as His son or daughter. That is why His Holy Spirit convinces you to feed your spirit daily with God’s Word so that you might grow spiritually into a more intimate and deeper relationship with your Father.

Finally, as your Manufacturer’s Instructional Manual, the Bible also teaches you about your responsibilities as a child of God, which includes how to be accountable for the ways you behave in every relationship you enter into in this life. In other words, the Bible should be used to sustain (nourish and maintain) you, from day-to-day, so that you eventually will be able to graduate to spiritual meat (to grow spiritually strong enough) that you lovingly can demonstrate to the lost souls in this world why they too should taste and see that the Word of God is good, solid food for the spirit. Without doubt, it takes a spiritually fed mature spirit to spiritually nourish the soul and the body so that the entire person (spirit, soul, and body) will be transformed into the image of Christ Jesus.

Holy Spirit, remind us of our need to daily feed our spirit with the Word of God, instead of waiting until something goes wrong in our lives, or waiting until a difficult decision needs to be made, which too often is when we go running to our Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual (the Bible) to find that relevant scriptural passage(s) that will tell us how to fix our problem(s). Activate in us the desire to feast off of the Word of God more often than we feast off of our natural food. Reveal what the Word of God says about our Designer’s purpose for our lives. Restore us in our faithfulness to His Word so that we can prove, through our appropriate corresponding action to our God-given Faith in the Word of God, that His Word works when we work His Word. In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.

Taken from Heavenly Insights