According to 1 Peter 2:2, there is a direct connection between our hunger for the Word of God and our spiritual growth: like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. This personal intake of the Word requires daily meditation and study. The blessed man is the one who rejects the counsel of the world because his habit of delighting in the law of the Lord causes him to meditate on truth day and night. This results in spiritual growth and fruitfulness (Psalm 1:1-3).
Peter says that our relationship to the Word of God is a key part of our growth “in respect to salvation.” This is not growing into being saved, but rather speaks of growth as the outworking of salvation that has already been received in the heart. In other words, he is saying that since we have experienced God’s salvation, “tasted the kindness of God,” then we must crave the Word that will make us grow. In light of this, John Piper’s words are especially challenging, “Our approach to the Bible should be like a miser in the gold rush, or a fiancee who has lost her engagement ring somewhere in the house.” [A Godward Life, Book 2, p. 183] That is what our attitude to the Scriptures ought to be like! The psalmist also understood the connection between delighting in the Word and his walk of obedience and, therefore, prayed, Make me walk in the path of Thy commandments, for I delight in it (119:35).
In other words, one of the marks of genuine conversion is a new relationship to the Word of God that produces a new delight in it because of the Holy Spirit’s work in regeneration. Since we have tasted the kindness of God in salvation, it is only natural that we will then hunger and thirst for His righteousness.
All his personal papers from this period [1722] indicate that a new master-interest possessed him: it was to enjoy the Word of God. ‘I had then,' he later wrote, 'and at other times, the greatest delight in the holy Scriptures, of any book whatsoever. Oftentimes in reading it every word seemed to touch my heart. I felt a harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence to see the wonders contained in it, and yet almost every sentence seemd to be full of wonders.’” [Banner of Truth, 1987, p. 41]
What is your present relationship to the Word of God?
Are you delighting in it?
Are you meditating on it day and night in order to obey it so that you might experience God’s success? (Joshua 1:8).
If we want to grow in our relationship with Christ, there is no way around it, we must delight in the Word!
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