Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Hanging On Every Word

LUKE 19:47-48 – And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.

THEME OF THE DAY. HANGING ON EVERY WORD. In reading today’s scripture, I pondered if I would have been one of those people “hanging on his words”? Would I have found myself on the edge of my seat listening intently to every word spoken by the Lord Jesus? But then I transported my thinking to the present. Today, tomorrow and the next Lord’s Day will I be “hanging on every word” of Jesus I read in my Bible or hear from a sermon? Will the Word of God proclaimed capture my mind, heart and will with force? Is the anticipation that I get to hear God’s Word in its various forms of expression – personal reading, sermons, websites – swelling up in my heart with an eagerness to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to Him? And I extend these questions to you. Are you eager to hear Jesus through His Word? It is Friday. Is the anticipation of the coming Lord’s Day and the preached Word in your church beginning to build an excitement in your soul? I hope it is so for both of us. An appetite for the proclaimed Word is a mark of good spiritual health. Conversely, where this appetite is missing, only the “shell” of Christianity is in one’s life. Spiritual sickness is upon us. There may be all the outward signs of being a Christian; good morals, faithful to church, even service, but there is no living reality of a living Christ in one’s life. It is merely an externalized lack in spirituality. It is a clear sign of spiritual sickness when little to no appetite for the Word of God exists in our lives. When the Bible is easily neglected and hunger for the preached Word on the Lord’s Day is absent, a settled backslidden condition is upon us requiring deep repentance. But there is hope. If we struggle to be individuals hanging on Jesus’ words, we don’t need to stay in this sad position. Here are three helps to get us out of this pit of indifference.

First, repent of this serious sin of spiritual neglect and lack of appetite. Yes, it is a serious sin. God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). And God so loved the world that He gave us His Holy Scriptures that we might know this Son. To neglect the Bible is to neglect Christ. To lack an appetite for the Bible is to lack an appetite for Christ. And to neglect the Word is to have lost first love for Christ (Revelation 2:1-7). The remedy? Go to prayer in confession and repentance. God delights in us as we do so.

Next, pray for God to give us a hunger for His Word and keep asking Him for it. The example of such persevering prayer is in the importune widow Jesus talks of in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 18:1-8). Persevering prayer for a desire for God’s Word brings pleasure to the Lord and will not be denied. It may not immediately come, but it will come. Stay at it. Persevering prayer that will not stop until the request is granted is a sign of us being serious with God.

A final help in developing a hunger for God’s Word is don’t neglect being in the Word, privately and in church. We will do what is most important to us. We will pursue what grips our hearts. We will not miss the Word read or preached if we truly want the God who is revealed in the Word. The more we exercise self-discipline to be in and under the Word, the deepening of our appetite for the Word occurs.

So, have we been in the Word today? If not, are we planning time for it later in the day? What about the upcoming Lord’s Day? Are we getting eager to hear the Word preached? May God help us be a people “hanging on His words” each day and each Lord’s Day in our lives.

PRAYER: “Father, create in me a lasting hunger and thirst for Your Word.”

QUOTE: “Our appetite for the Bible reveals our appetite for the Christ revealed in the Bible”