“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
– Matthew 4:4
Jesus is quoting here from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament as he’s being tempted after fasting for weeks and weeks and weeks, for 40 days, and the devil is tempting him to turn stones into bread.
Matthew 4:4 Shows How Greatly Jesus Esteems God’s Word
And Jesus looks at him and said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Do you believe that? That you live by every word that comes from the mouth of God, that more important to you today than breakfast or lunch or dinner, more important than food itself? God’s word is your sustenance. You can’t live without it. It is your source of life. Well, let me just point out what the Bible teaches from cover to cover. This is true.
The Bible is your source of life. You cannot live without the word of God. That’s what Jesus is saying. The question is, is it evident in your life that you realize this? Do you live like your daily bread is the word of God? I think Psalm one, “Blessed is a man who walks not on the council of wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night.” And then, you keep reading on there in Psalm one, and you see the fruit that comes from living off of the word of God.
So, let me encourage you today, especially at the beginning of a year, if you don’t have a regular Bible reading plan where you are daily feasting on the word, and you know tomorrow you’re going to be feasting on the word from here and the next day and the next day, let me encourage you to do that.
Strongly encourage you.
Matthew 4:4 Reminds Us We Should be Soaked with God’s’ Word
And in case you haven’t picked up on this, right now these Pray the Word podcasts are following a Bible reading plan. So Robert Murray McShane is a pastor from centuries ago, and he put together a Bible reading plan that walks through the Old Testament once, and the New Testament and Psalms twice over the course of either a year or two. And you can search that on Google. There’s a great devotional that goes along with it by D.A. Carson. For the Love of God is the title of that devotional. I use that pretty much every single day. And so, here we are in Matthew 4 for this podcast episode, and Lord willing, tomorrow we’ll be in Matthew 5 and Matthew 6 and Matthew 7. So, just walking through. So I would encourage you to follow along with a daily Bible reading plan.
If you don’t already have one, use this one, and don’t just hear and pray according to a verse during the day, but make sure you’re soaking in a chapter, two chapters or more of God’s word every day. Don’t just nibble at the word of life. This is more important than any meal you’ll eat today, any meal you’ll eat on any day.
So we pray, God, help us to live like we believe this. Like we believe your word is our sustenance, because it is. Our lives depend on your word. God, we cannot experience life apart from your word. Think of Isaiah 55 verse three. Listen to me. You tell us that you may live. You have given us life in your word, so help us to read it and study it and memorize it and meditate on it day and night and treasure it as our life.
Praying for Bible Translations
Lord, we praise you for your word. We praise you for giving it to us. Lord, we pray for people who don’t have it around the world. We think about Bible as peoples around the world. God, we pray for your blessing on Bible translation, for the spread of your word among all the peoples, among all the nations. They can’t have life if they don’t have your word. God, please bless all the efforts that are going into getting your word into every language of the world that people might live. O God, we praise you for your word. We praise you for the life we find in it, and we praise you to help us today to live according to it. In Jesus’ name, we pray according to Matthew 4:4. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
