Embracing the Power of God's Word Daily

So, um, this past week, to give you the full story now, um, actually two weeks ago, I was learning about what it means to have God's word. Right? I've had a conversation with a friend, and he was like, "Okay, if your earthly father passed away and he wrote you some last words, would you not keep it with you all the time? Would you not have it on your person?"

Right? So what we talked about is how much more than would you need to have your heavenly Father, who died for you and went into heaven, leaving His word with you in written form? How much more do we need that?

And this past week, actually, um, I have the Bible app on my phone, so almost daily, the verse of the day was about the word of God, which is what prompted me to share it with you today.

One of the verses was Matthew chapter 4, verse 4. Many of you know the context of that verse where Satan is tempting Jesus in the wilderness, and, um, he offers some bread to Jesus. And Jesus says, "Isn't it written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God?"

And immediately, I remembered—I’ve been reading the Bible from the beginning—but I remembered that it’s originally written, and Jesus quoted Deuteronomy chapter 8. So immediately, I went back and started reading, and this was the crux of today's thought, actually.

I wanted to read it out loud, so if you would like, you can also turn your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 8.

And we'll read it from verse one. It says, "Every commandment which I command you today, you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers.

And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord."

I'll stop there, but immediately for me, those 40 years in the wilderness—a big reason of why that happened is written right here in Deuteronomy chapter 8. It says precisely, it says it was to humble you and to test you.

Test you of what? Test you to see, to know what was in your heart, to see what your heart was made of. It says here whether you would keep His commandments or not. That’s what God was testing during those 40 years, or one of the major things He was testing.

So immediately, God challenged me with a simple thought. I was listening to this one theologian, William Craig, I believe is his name. He was in an interview with someone, and he was being interviewed, and he said this.

He said that during these days, you see a lot of people separating from the church. And he says this: the reason why we see the separation is because all of these middle Christians are now picking a side. The people that really believe in the word of God are going more towards Jesus, but the people who don’t know the power of the word of God or what’s in it are slowly moving away, realizing that they don’t really believe in the word of God or in God Himself.

So he was trying to explain how or why we see all these church numbers declining in America. Um, and even more today, we see it. This interview was four years ago, I believe.

And for me, immediately, the one thing that came to mind is like this right here: the commandments, right? To keep His word, what’s written. And we often say, and even in this next song, it says, "This is my daily bread." Right? Even in the Lord's Prayer, it says, "Give us this day our daily bread."

Um, when we read 1 John chapter 1, it talks about the word becoming flesh, right? And Jesus says, "Eat of My flesh," the word of God. And right here, it says that you don’t live by just this earthly bread, by the food, but by every word that proceeds from the Lord.

So for me, immediately, it challenged me. Um, because even I—and this is for me first—is that even I sometimes on a Sunday, right, feel like I don’t always have to be like at church, right? There’s live streams, there’s things I can do, right, to make up for it.

And a lot of us start to negotiate with God. Um, I believe one of the youth meetings we had, we were talking about negotiating our Sunday, our Sabbath, with God, where often we’ll be like, "Oh, I have something important to do on Sunday," or "I have this exam to take, a job to do, people to see, a party to go to," whatever the case is. We start negotiating with God.

And there’s this one other lady, who I forgot her name, but she says this. She’s a mother, and she says, "In our house, Sundays are non-negotiable." The reason is, is because the Sabbath is a commandment to keep it, right? You can’t move the day. Each week, the same day is for the Lord.

And she says that if you start to negotiate a Sunday, you’re immediately teaching your kids that God is negotiable, right? So what are you first teaching your kids? Obviously, I don’t have kids yet, but the challenge was for me: if I’m starting to think that Sunday is negotiable for me, then who am I to say that God is my everything, that I am keeping His word?

And then not even that—forget about Sundays—when God says, when Jesus says that the word of God is bread, how many of us, how many of us are really waking up in the morning to read His word? Right?

Like they have the saying that you can live, uh, three weeks without food, right? Or three days without water, uh, three minutes without air, right? But it says even more than that, you need the word of God. You need to have a desire for the word of God, right?

Um, and the last thing I’ll share is something by John Bevere, right? Uh, John Bevere. I was just scrolling through Instagram, and one of his interviews came up. He’s another preacher, well-known, and he says this: "How do I know that my balance is off between godly things and worldly things?"

He’s like, "How do I know? What’s my metric?"

And obviously, a hundred percent of God’s things is a good thing, but for those of us who want to live a life where we still want our worldly things, then this is the metric he gave. He said, "The way you know is if you are longing to read the word. The moment reading the word of God becomes something you have to do instead of something you want to do, that’s how you know that you have completely thrown off the balance of godly things," is what he says.

So then again, I beg the question: how many of us truly love to read the word of God? Who are desperate to read it? Who don’t look at it as something they need to do, like a daily chore?

Obviously, for our kids growing up, they don’t understand the full breadth of who God is yet, Lord willing, of course. But they look up toward their parents, they look up to the people around them, their friends, their influences.

So how much are we showing that we love the word of God? How much do we actually love the word of God?

So as we sing this last song, um, it’s called "Breathe," and it says this: "This is my daily bread, your very words spoken to me, and I’m desperate for you, and I’m lost without you."

Um, as we sing the song, just that simple thought and that simple challenge: are we longing to read His word every single moment that we can? Right?

I know some people who love God’s word so much that even during their breaks, their lunch breaks during work, they choose to read the Bible over eating food. Sometimes they’ll be like, "Okay, I want to read the word. I want to meditate on what I read this morning because I want to understand God’s word more. I want to spend time in His presence more."

And then on the other hand, we know people who just look at lunch break or look at the end of their day like a time to relax, a time to watch TV, a time to do anything else but dwell in God’s presence.

So who are you? Which side are you falling on? Do you love God’s word, or do you treat it just like a chore, any other book?

So again, sing the words if you mean it, and of course, if you want to mean it, sing it too.

Listen, breathe.