Matthew 4:4 "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Matthew 4:4 makes us understand that it takes more than bread to stay alive, i.e., man shall not live by bread alone; it takes a steady stream of words from the mouth of God. When we talk about human sustenance from the spiritual perspective, it is safe to say that mentioning physical food without equally emphasizing the importance of spiritual food will most definitely lead to gross and fatal malnutrition. A spiritual man must in actual fact prioritize spiritual strength over physical strength because life is spiritual and as Christians we already know that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. It is not possible to live in an actively spiritual world while lacking spiritual strength, it automatically puts you at a disadvantage and at the losing end of whatever ‘life’ may bring your way.
This scripture makes us understand that we must hang unto God for our dear lives and cling to His Word; His promises, instructions, opinions etc.
How can you hang on to something or someone that you do not even know? For us to nourish our physical bodies daily, we have to cook and cooking is a skill that is learnt either when you are taught by someone or by experience, you could develop new recipes by yourself and then decide to share them with the world, in the same way, when you want to nourish your spirit, you either listen to the men of faith who have gone ahead of you or do your personal Bible study and begin to share what we know or what we have learnt, sometimes you may make mistakes in interpretation and get corrected by Fathers of faith.
This temptation came during a very trying moment as Jesus had just ended His fast, but Jesus was able to survive it because just like He said; He hadn’t been living by bread alone, He had familiarized Himself with the Word of God to the extent that He knew it by heart thereby setting an example for us His children on how to go through life. If you are a born – again Christian and you cherish physical food more than your Spiritual food then you are most definitely not doing something right.
1 Timothy 4:8 also talks about how we should prioritize spiritual fitness over the physical, there’s a common saying in the world of fitness; ‘’You are what you eat’’ so if all you eat is bread, then you’ll just the be the bread that the devil will oppress wherever and whenever he feels like it, but if you are fully grounded and rooted in the Word of God then you can command the respect of the devil, he dares not mess around with you because he knows that He that lives in you is greater than him. No matter what he tries to tempt you with, you’ll come out victorious because you have allowed the Word of God to transform and renew your heart, life and thinking.
There is a common saying that you cannot give what you don’t have, and it also applies to The Word of God; the Word of God is able to give life because the Word of God in itself is alive, it possesses life and so when we spend enough time reading it, meditating it, pondering upon it, getting lost in it, it sort of initiates us into the life of God, it’s kind of like we enter into the Word of God and start living in the reality of God, we start living the life of God and there is absolutely nothing that could be more perfect than living life the exact way it was intended to be lived by the Creator. The word of God becomes like a sieve sifting out everything that is not supposed to be in your life until it gradually but steadily makes you into a new man, living a new life.
Image Credit; whataboutjesus.com