The Word of God | Matthew 4
Scripture Reading:
Please comment below with your conversation with God and/or insights from today’s Scriptures.
You can answer the following:
What’s your first impressions about this chapter?
What happened in this chapter?
What’s a verse or passage that stuck out to you?
What is your prayer to God brought on by this chapter?
Don’t forget to join us Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm on FB.com/waterschurchnyc. Join the conversation about the Scriptures and topic at hand.
The Bread | Lemuel Ayudtud
Chapter Notables:
Temptation of Christ: verses 1-11
Jesus starts preaching with the message of repentance (I guess that’s a big deal.): verses 12-17
Jesus calls his first 4 disciples: verses 18-22
Jesus starts active ministry: verses 23-25
There are some things we cannot live without, then there are somethings we can live with but not by itself. Did that make sense? I’ll try to explain.
We can’t live without air, food, and water. Those are all essential for life. Then we CAN live with just air, food, and water, but not by themselves. In order for life to be “life” we must have other things added to food, air, and water. What is food, air, and water after all if there is no family, friendship and even fun? What kind of life would that be? Would it even be life?
Jesus said, “Man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Jesus obviously placed an incredible importance on Word. When we read it, it’s not that man cannot live off of eating bread, but man can’t do it with just that. Man needs God’s Word along with the essential things of life.
What’s being physically alive but not living anyway? Sure you can live with the essentials, but the Word of God is needed in the “living” of life. It’d be unhealthy for us to continue living only to survive. We need to add the Word of God in our lives so we can thrive. It’s the thriving that makes the Word necessary. It’s the added value that the Word gives to our lives that make the Word of God and effectual addition to the “essentials” of life.
Paul the Apostle wrote that the Word of God is alive! That the Word of God is sharpen than any two-edged sword. It’s able to pierce and divide into the deepest part of us. Eating bread can’t do that. Eating food and drinking water or being clothed or being sheltered or even breathing air cannot do for us what the Word of God can do for us.
The Word of God is able to help us define ourselves. It helps us to learn our intricacies, it can reveal our own thoughts and concepts of life and living. The Word of God can cut away anything from our lives that will not benefit us in the long run. It can cause us to know our inner most thoughts and motivations. I mean, once you learn those things about you, you can be freed from all the shackles that the world or your past or your fears may have on you.
Another thing that Paul stated that the Word of God is that it is God-breathe. When Paul wrote to Timothy, his son in the faith, that it was “inspired”, he used the Greek words that means divinely breathed. I believe this is why Jesus said what He said: the same breath that breathed into man and he became a living soul, is the same breath that breathes in us when we read the Holy Scriptures. It feeds us in the inner most part of us. It feeds that spiritual part of us. It’s the original and real “soul food”.
Lord, teach me to love Your word. Help me gleam from it every day. Give me the grace to understand its precepts and directions for my life. Help me, Lord, every time I eat to remember that I cannot live by eating bread alone, that if I feed my body, I must make sure to feed my soul. In Your Name, Jesus, I pray. Amen.
