Famine for God's Word
I was really in doubt about what the topic of my speech would be, that's when I decided to pray to the Lord and ask Him to give me the gift of the Spirit to decide the topic.
It was then that I took my Bible, offered a prayer in my mind, and a scripture was shown to me.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” (Amos 8:11)
What can we understand from these words from the Book of Amos, chapter 8, verse 11?
God is telling us that there will come a time when we will feel hunger and thirst, but not that hunger and thirst tied to our physical or physiological needs, but our spiritual needs.
Our body and mind tend to look for satiety and satisfaction in food and drink. When we walk for a long time, or exercise for a long time, our body gives us signs that we need water: we are thirsty. When we go without food for a long time, our body also gives us an alert that we need to eat something: we need to nourish ourselves. But how to understand the signs if our mind, or our body is in need of our spirit to be nourished?
Well, if we analyze how our body works, we can get an idea. We learn that we need to eat x times a day, according to experts and nutritionists, so that we can be nourished.
But in the same way, we learn that we must have a balanced diet, drink x liters of water a day, according to each body, each organism, that we must avoid eating too much junk. Why? Because it's not enough to be nourished, we need to be healthy: our body needs to be healthy. And our spirit works that way too.
“(...) Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)
Just as we must take care of the nourishment of our body, we must also take care of the nourishment of our spirit. But how to do it? Being good people. When we give a hand to a friend who needs our help, to a family member. When we practice charity, true charity, the one that comes from the heart: the one that has no vanity, the one that has no status, the one that is not made for appearance.
Also, there is no point in just picking up the scriptures and reading simply for the sake of reading. We need to interpret, we need to understand, we need to study and seek information. And where to look for information? One of the options is here!
This commitment that we have and make to be present at meetings every Saturday is to nourish us spiritually, so that we learn, study, so that our minds are open, so that our hearts are also open to new information.
“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)
Come to Christ, brethren! Attending meetings is a gift, not a burden. We are having the opportunity to learn from a living prophet who was chosen and called by God. He was visited by angels.
Yes, my brothers. Our prophet Maurício Artur Berger brought light to the world when he brought The Sealed Book, which are the records and teachings of God to His people in this dispensation. This gift we received teaches us about a magnificent power: the power of feelings, good feelings, pure feelings. These sentiments derive from the name of God, according to The Sealed Book of Moses, chapter 5, verse 27.
I believe that being here is an opportunity that we are taking little advantage of.
It is important for our spirit that we are here nourishing ourselves with the word of God. These weekly studies are to open our minds, to open our thoughts and our understandings. Expand our knowledge so that we can understand what the scriptures want to tell us and not what people shaped us for us to understand.
We are being fed by the word of God every weekend. The greatest proof that our spirits need continuous nourishment is the emergence of the Sealed Book. Our God knows what his people need and has given us this magnificent gift from heaven. He understands that we are still preparing to return to His initial Glory, but we still need to learn a lot about His Heavenly plan so that we can one day be ready to meet Him.
In the Sealed Book - Acts of the Three Nephites 5:9, it tells us the following:
“Therefore, I want to remind you of these things that were required of us by Jesus Christ, to make us pure in heart, seeking with fidelity to promote good among brothers, without detracting from the words left to us by the prophets of the past, in order that we might obtain the word of God revealed among us, that we may be one, just as he remains united with us through his gospel.”
Feeding ourselves spiritually means continuing to study the Gospel of Christ. It also means being equipped with good feelings: those feelings that derive from the name of God. Practicing true charity, doing good for our brothers and family and we cannot forget that Jesus also commanded us to love our enemies: I think this is the hardest part.
The Bible is our map, the iron rod to which we must cling. The new records, like the Sealed Book, are the sequence to what God wants us to be able to understand and practice in our lives.
Just as we usually sit down with our families to have daily, or weekly meals, or those who meet less frequently with their families, why don't we take advantage of moments like these to read the scriptures, to talk with our family members about God, to talk about Christ? It's so nice when we have company to make any meal, whether it's lunch, dinner, coffee. Why not enjoy the company to read the scriptures? This is food for our spirit.
And I want to close by leaving the question: Have you been fed today?
Thank you.