The human body is composed in such a way that without daily nourishment, weakness, disease and death will follow. It will be a gradual process but one that if not altered will result in a horrible death of starvation. Pictures of emaciated children bring tears to the eye; parents who also suffer from the depravation of proper nourishment raise the anger of society to seek correction. A greater need is found in the lives of people who have little or no spiritual nourishment.

As in the physical body, the spiritual man requires daily nourishment. Paul declared that our faith is determined by our knowledge of the word of God (Romans 10:17). The word of God is shown to be as the manna provided Israel in the wilderness (Exodus 16). Jesus taught the Jews that what they had in the wilderness did not give them lasting life but He was the manna from heaven that gave eternal life. "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:48-51)

Without the nourishment of Jesus Christ in our lives, we cannot live. Each day must be filled with the desire and the filling of our hearts, minds and souls to partake of the “bread of life.” The word of God is as necessary in our day-to-day lives as physical nourishment to our mortal bodies. Without it; we die!

The Psalmist declared that he languished for salvation in the Lord and he waited for the word of the Lord to revive him (Psalm 119:81-88). He loved the law of the lord and it was his mediation all the day (Psalm 119:97). Psalm 1 shows the value of meditating on the word of God daily: “His delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night” (v2). The measure of our faith is proportionate to the measure of our daily nourishment of the word of God. Little contact with the Lord will offer little hope in the Lord. Little hope in the Lord will starve your spiritual life to death.

Do you struggle daily with the challenges of life? Are the temptations of life overwhelming your courage to fight off sin? Spending time in the everlasting manna will give hope and victory to your lives. How sad that so much is available to us from the word of God and how little we use in our lives. Paul declared the gospel was the power of God (Romans 1:16). This power is the manna of our lives that gives us hope, vision, courage, faith and the ability to fight off the disease of sin. Without it we are doomed.

The people of God were destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Living without the nourishment of the knowledge of the grace of God will cause our lives to wilt away in a miserable agony of spiritual death. Make your commitment to live with the word of God each and every day of your lives as much as you commit to taking care of your mortal bodies. Our fleshly bodies will pass away but our inward man must be renewed daily. “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). “Put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Colossians 3:10). Don’t go hungry. Your life depends on it!