Understanding Scripture helps us reflect God's love to the world
by Kyle Goings
“Teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor you” (Ps. 86:11 NLT).
Crave (verb): to long for, want greatly, desire.
Have you ever craved something so strongly you didn’t know what would happen if you didn’t get it? I am not talking about craving food but maybe a promotion, your dream house, to get married or even a child. What did it feel like when that craving was met? Were you satisfied for a while, maybe even years, but then excitement faded and you soon moved on to another craving?
I believe we were made to crave. God created us to crave and his desire is that we will crave a relationship with him. The best way to build that relationship is to meditate on his Word. Take an honest look at your life. Can you say you crave the Word of God? If a day goes by and you don’t have your intimate quiet time with God, do you feel like something is missing?
1 Peter 2:2 says, “Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment” (NLT). If you have ever spend more than one minute around a newborn you know that a baby cries as if the world is coming to an end if she don’t get satisfied. There is no hiding it, and the baby doesn’t care who knows it.
This should be our response to the Word of God. We should be crying out for more nourishment for our lives because we are starving without it. David knew this when he wrote Psalms 86:11 (NLT), “Teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to your truth!” David knew that the more he understood Scripture the more his life reflected Scripture. And the more his life reflected Scripture the more glory and honor would be given back to God.
But it starts with a craving, a desire to know what God has in store for you and that desire can be meet by reading God’s Word. It’s more than attending a church on Sunday morning, more than participating in a Bible study or small group; it is getting into the Bible every day. To know God’s Word is to know God.
And when you realize the Bible isn’t just for informational purposes but is a tool to transform lives you will soon realize, as David did, that the Bible is the only thing in this universe that a person can crave and it will never disappoint, never go unfulfilled and will always satisfy.
Kyle Goings is youth pastor at Bible Fellowship Church, a USMB congregation in Rapid City, SD.
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