Feeding on the Word of God
A practical illustration of feeding on the word of God:
Make a Bible out of fondant icing and marzipan. Try to make it look like your own Bible. I have a small brown leather-look Bible, so I used a block of marzipan and made the cover out of chocolate fondant icing. I had a whole pile of Bibles - illustrating the many types available to suit each person and their need. the fondant one was on the top of the pile and the congregation assumed it was a real Bible.
I then explained the importance of reading the Bible, as important as feeding ourselves every day. I picked the fondant bible up and emphasized how good the Bible is - kind of delicious, before taking a large bite out of it - to the sound of gasps and then laughs.
It really got the point home. A word of advice though - you need to take a break from speaking after biting the Bible, although the delay in returning to speaking gave the congregation time to take it in...
The Bible is satisfying, it feeds our souls. We need a regular diet of it - not an occasional snack.
"How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalm 119:103).
Eating Daily
Me and my wife's favorite food in the world is any Chinese buffet that we can belly up to, or any other buffet for that matter ... Golden corral, Pizza Hut. We love buffets!
Wouldn't it be great if you could go to a buffet and eat enough to last you all week? Would that not just be wonderful? You could go in and pay the price of the buffet, just pile it on that plate and be done with eating for a whole week!
But we know it doesn't work that way. No matter how much you eat off of that buffet, the next day you're going to be hungry and you need to eat again.
Yet isn't this how we approach our need for spiritual sustenance? We feed our soul one day and then starve it for six, as though what happens on Sunday is enough to last us all week.
"This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever" (John 6:58).
"And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts" (Acts 2:46, ESV).
We Are Obsessed With Our Phones
Network World reports:
We’re obsessed with our phones, a new study has found. The heaviest smartphone users click, tap or swipe on their phone 5,427 times a day, according to researcher Dscout.
That’s the top 10 percent of phone users, so one would expect it to be excessive. However, the rest of us still touch the addictive things 2,617 times a day on average. No small number.
The research firm, which specializes in consumer reactions to products, recruited 94 Android device users and installed special software on their smartphones. The tool tracked each user’s “interaction” over five days, all day, the company says in a blog post on its website.
“And by every interaction, we mean every tap, type, swipe and click. We’re calling them touches,” it explains.
Averaging out the numbers, the aforementioned figures mean the heaviest users are touching their devices a couple of million times in one year, Dscout says.
... Probably the most interesting thing in all this was that the people surveyed completely underestimated their phone touching. While they were initially shocked by the numbers, 41 percent said “it probably won’t change the way I use my phone.”
How many taps, types, swipes and clicks take place between you and God in a day?
If the number of times you were in contact with God on a daily basis could be tracked, would you be shocked by the result? Would it be because of how often, or, how infrequently you reached out to Him?
"Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8).
“You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Revelation 2:3-5).