Those of you who know me well, know that I love to eat. If I go without food for more than 4 or 5 hours, I go crazy! Some of you can last longer without food than me; perhaps you have fasted a day or two – either for spiritual or personal reasons. But one thing is for sure: we all need to eat! If we don’t eat on a regular basis, we will die.

The same thing happens in our spiritual lives; if we don’t “eat” spiritual food, we begin to die spiritually. But what is “spiritual food” in the life of a Christ-follower?

Jesus talks about two forms of spiritual nourishment for His followers: getting the Word of God IN our lives and applying the Word of God TO our lives.

In Matthew 4:4, Jesus says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

In John 4:34, Jesus further says, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.”

So a balanced spiritual diet is getting God’s Word into our lives and then seeking to obey it… That assumes that we are actually reading the Bible, doesn’t it?

How are we doing in taking in God’s Word? Are we reading the Bible? Do we take time to reflect upon what we read? Do we think of ways we can apply what we’ve read to our lives?  According to pollster and researcher, George Barna, most Christians in America do not read their Bible on a regular basis. That means most Christians in America are spiritually malnourished. And we see that based on the worldly attitudes/responses, lack of the fruit of the Spirit, and lack of spiritual empowerment that we see in the American Church today.

OK, enough of the guilt! So, how can we get more of God’s Word in our lives? Here are two surefire suggestions that can immediately help our Spiritual Word Intake:

1. HAVE A PLAN – if we plan to do nothing, we will surely do it (nothing) every time. So let’s plan to do something! Set apart a time in your day (start off with 10 minutes) to read the Bible. Then plan which book you will start reading (if you are new at this, I suggest reading one of the New Testament books or Psalms). Then set a goal for when you will finish reading that book.

2. HAVE A PARTNER – statistics show that we follow through on our plans much more when we have accountability. Meet with another Whole Life Worshiper (weekly or every other week) and keep each other accountable to your Bible reading. Share with each other what you have learned, questions you might have, etc. Pray for each other and encourage each other. I call these partnerships, “LTG’s” (Life Transformation Groups) because it is evident that those who are in these partnerships are reading Scripture regularly and seeing their lives being transformed.

I’ll discuss next week on the other side of “spiritual nutrition.” Right now, let’s stop procrastinating and get into the Word! There’s a “feast” waiting for us!