There were two phrases about God’s word that stood out to me. One was that His word was as sweet as honey. The other was that Ezekiel was to receive God’s words into his heart.
They are both about consuming. We’re to consume God’s word. It’s to become part of us. We don’t live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We should treat God’s word like we treat food. Do you give that much time, attention, desire/longing/craving, money, etc. to God’s word as you do food?
Writing out that verse made me take notice of the word “every.” We live by every word. We need them all. Knowing John 3:16 doesn’t give us life. We need every word. How can we have every word? We have Jesus, who is the Word.
Our family lived among and served a semi-literate people group. The people there may have gotten to 4th or 8th grade. They owned no books. My husband’s Bible translation is the first they are reading in their own language, other than text messages. Social media has been a gift to them in that they are reading and writing in their own language now.
These Christians don’t know every word of the Bible. Some have studied the Bible a bit in another language. Some are listening to the audio of what’s been translated so far and they don’t know more than that. They don’t know every word. They certainly have no resources or skill to research the original language and get at every word. But they can have Jesus.
They can receive Jesus into their heart and His righteousness can be the lamp to their feet and light to their path. They can have Jesus in their mouths because mouths speak the overflow of the heart. If someone has Jesus in their heart, or better said, if Jesus has someone’s heart, their mouths will speak of Him and they will have sweet lips!