Latest / The Daily Word / September 5 – When the Word Becomes Bitter
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good we hours of the night, whenever you are joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey, and it is my privileged pastor, Arkata Campus, and I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode where we're going to be doing a devotion out of the New Testament portion of our Life Journal Bible Reading Plan. Today is September the 5th, and allow me to say happy birthday to myself. Coming up in a couple days on the 7th, on Monday, it'll be my birthday. But today we are reading out of Revelation chapter 10, short little chapter here. In the middle of the trumpets that are being blown, we have this interesting little scene where. John sees an angel holding a scroll, And the voice of the Lord comes and speaks to him, and says in verse eight, Go take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth. So I went up and I said to him, Give me the little book, and he said to me, Take it and eat it, and it will make your stomach bitter. But it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth. Then I took the little book out of the angel's hands and ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter. Now this is a interesting little little bit here that we also see demonstrated in Ezekiel's Life, the prophet Ezekiel also ate a scroll as a prophetic act. And Jeremiah also spoke about the fact that God's words were as sweet as honey on his lips. And it's very interesting here that that John takes the word of God, he eats it, it's sweet to his lips, but then it's bitter in his stomach. And I think that that's a really poignant. picture to us about the way we sometimes receive the word of God. We'll we'll receive it and we'll read something. The Lord will speak to us out of scripture. We'll hear a sermon where the Lord quickens something that that is said, something out of the scripture, something that the an insight that the pastor brought about life. And we'll be quick to gobble it up and just yum yum yum. Just eat it up. And it's so sweet and we enjoy The challenge is that after that, we will recognize eating it. We need to make changes in our life to implement whatever it was that the Lord was speaking to us. But then we find later that what was sweet becomes bitter in our stomach because that's the time when it actually gets digested and starts becoming part. Of who we are. It's easy to eat the sweet thing, it's harder to implement it. think back to Jesus' parable of the sower and the fact that he would sow into ground where it was stony ground and it was shallow, so the seed would go in and it would spring forth quickly and it would bring life. But because there were so many stones in the way. That plant couldn't put down roots. So the sun came up and scorched it away. This is the challenge that we sometimes face when it comes time to to eat the word of God that would make actual changes to our life. Because at the end of the day, I think I can speak for most of humanity when I say I don't actually really always want to change. I want I want the fruit of changing. I want to have what's on the other side of that change. But what keeps me from having that fruit is the fact that I don't actually want to do things differently. I want to continue living my life the way that I do. And that's that's particularly challenging. When we're talking about reading scripture, when we're talking about encountering the living God who knows the best way for us to live our lives, and who is not willing to compromise with us on how we go about living those lives. Now, I say he's not willing to compromise, that doesn't mean that he drops the whole book at once. But as we continue in our relationship with God, We start noticing that there will be more little nuanced things, smaller things that he begins speaking to. He never stops correcting us, he never stops bringing change into our lives. The word never stops being sweet to our lips and bitter to our stomach, no matter how far we progress. So that is my insight from Revelation chapter 10 for today. That sometimes we eat God's word and it is a delight. And then when it comes time to actually bring it to work and application in our life, it presents challenges, it's bitter, and we have to press through that if we want to actually have the fruit that the word brings into our life. I hope that's been a blessing to you, that ops or Let's talk application. I think it's fairly straightforward today. What is it that the Lord's been speaking to you about? And have you done it? You know, my old pastor back in Alabama used to say that if you ever aren't hearing from God, if God stops speaking to you for a season, the first thing you should do is go look at the last thing God said to you, and then you should ask yourself, have I done it? Sometimes God doesn't continue talking to us. Sometimes he just says what he says. He means what he says, and he doesn't say anymore until we have followed through with what he said. So am I following through? Am I pushing through that bitterness and doing the hard thing of making change in my life? Am I positioning myself to receive his grace that allows me to do that? Because that grace is the beautiful thing that actually makes, despite the bitterness, that change possible. Philippians 2:13 tells us that it is God that works in us both to will and to do for his good pleasure. So have I done it? Am I relying on his grace? Am I relying on his power to come into my life and enable me to do the things that he has asked me to do? Let's pray. Father, I thank you. I thank you that you speak to us, you continue speaking to us, you don't give up on us, you're continuing to lead us and love us and guide us. I pray for everyone listening today that if there is something that you are waiting for us to take action steps on, that you would bring that to our minds, that you would make it clear to us, it wouldn't be ambiguous, it'll be very clear-cut. What you're asking us to do. And then I pray for your grace and your power to enable us to do it as we take steps in obedience to what you're asking us to do. We know that everything that you ask for us, you have good things on the other side. You don't ask us to make changes to our life just for the sake of it. You know that there's goodness waiting for us. Your goodness is waiting for us on the other side. So we thank you for your word that is sweet. Like honey, even when it's bitter to our stomachs. We praise you and we thank you in the name of Jesus for who you are. Amen.