[The Word] is the food for the soul. Ezekiel said he took the roll and ate it. Robert Ingersoll certainly voiced our sentiments when he said, though in derision, "Anybody that will believe the Bible ought to be fed on the same kind of diet that Ezekiel had." Lord, give us more of the heavenly roll to swallow.

An old man said in Canada, that he had been watching revivals for thirty-five years, and every year there was a revival, and all the converts who kept reading their Bible kept saved, and those who did not backslid. No more can we expect to keep up our spirit and neglect the careful reading and study of the Word of God, than we can sustain our physical life and neglect eating food. The effect on the soul caused by continued absence from secret prayer and the study of the Word of God becomes as apparent to the spiritual Christian as the effect caused by the absence of food would be to the physical man.

Noticeable among these effects are weakness and leanness. How quickly the body will begin to fail. How thin and weak it will soon get! In our own experience we have noticed that, in those seasons of increased rush when it did not seem practicable to spend as much time as usual with the Lord, we found ourselves lean in our soul and weakened in our power of spiritual endurance. The same temptations which before would be resisted with little effort would now require all the strength we could summon to make us overcomers.

To continue this would certainly lead to backsliding and death.

We cannot hope to become strong Christians if we fail to employ those means which God has provided to make us strong.

The more we read the Word, the more we want to. In the whole economy of grace, it is either more and more or less and less. The more we pray, the more we love to pray. The more we learn of God's Word, the more we want to learn. The more we work, the more we feel like working. The more we give, the more we will have that we may give and will want to give.

On the other hand, the less we pray and study and work and give, the less will we feel like doing these things. The Word of God is a mine of wealth, and that person who would secure precious jewels from its depths must dig for them. May God send us a revival of reading the Word.

W. E. S., Excerpt from The Nazarene, August 17, 1899

Please note: This article was originally published in 1899. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.

Used with permission from Nazarene Archives for HT devotions