Nena Arias | February 12, 2024
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
(Matthew 4:4)
In our physical body we hunger for food and get thirsty for water. What about the soul in your spiritual dimension, does it ever thirst for God? If so, how do you feed it? We know all about feeding our physical hunger and quenching our thirst, but what about our soul and spirit, how do we satisfy their needs?
The above verse of Mathew 4:4 is very easy to understand and does not need much explanation. Jesus was quoting what Deuteronomy 8:3 when Satan was tempting him to turn stones into bread knowing that Jesus was extremely hungry after fasting for 40 days. In Deuteronomy God referred to this principle when he tested the Israelites so that they would learn that life depended on God, not other things like bread. The verse means that people need more than material things to truly live. Jesus is our example that we should use God’s word to make all our decisions and to feed our soul with the bread of his truth found in his Word—the Bible.
Too often people focus their daily life on merely existing rather than truly living. Most people wait until they are hit with a major tragedy or disaster in their lives to begin to look for something else that will help see them through. If they already know about God they often look deeper into their faith to see if it really works. Others, who have been oblivious begin to question if there is a God try to find him in some way. For the most part God is an afterthought when he should be our first thought in all things.
The Nourishment of God’s Word
Deuteronomy 8:3 says, “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” This clearly means that God’s Word is the nourishment for our soul as food is to our physical body. It is what will sustain us through life and its demands with the right counsel.
It is obvious from God’s perspective that seeking after him and his truth is more important than seeking what we are going to have for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We need God’s truth and wisdom to guide our thinking and the values we embrace for right living and choose to be in a right relationship with him above anything or anyone else. We should pursue him as diligent as we pursue food and water and in even greater proportion since we can live a few days without food and water but every day that we are away from God and his Word we truly lose essence in life.
Obviously, the base verse is about hunger and God providing the spiritual sustenance to keep it alive, grounded, growing, and moving forward until our final breath here on earth.
Not depending only on physical food also brings in the literal act of fasting; just like Jesus was doing at the time of Satan’s temptation to Jesus. The Bible tells us that fasting physical food also has it value in the spiritual realm. On one occasion Jesus’s disciples could not cast out a demon and they asked Jesus why they couldn’t do it. He answered them in Matthew 17:20-23 that says, “this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
Seeking God to the point of also denying such basic needs like eating because you are hungrier for God than food has tremendous spiritual value. I would just encourage each one of us to consider the place of fasting in your relationship with God. I don’t know if or how regular you fast, but I want to encourage you to make it a regular part of your relationship with God, to physically put aside food for a day or a determined time as God leads, and to say, “More than I need physical food, I need spiritual nourishment from God’s word.” This is a good discipline that Jesus practiced and expects us to do.