The Message for the Messenger of God

The messenger is to devour the Word.  He is to take it in so much as to fill himself with it.  As he is filled by the Word, he is to taste of its sweetness which is like honey.  He must then prepare himself to regurgitate the Word that he has taken in as God's message to His people.

In the Book of Psalms, we are told to taste and see that the Lord is good.  The metaphorical reference is that we can ingest and digest God's goodness.  How do we do this? In most cases, we will experience this by taking in His Word. 

By reading His Word, we get an inside look at God's heart for mankind.  God offers us His Word as a direct message to both our hearts and souls.  We experience His goodnes when we engage in the reading and study of His Word.

As we read His Word, we come to recognize how God is and what God does and says.  We become exposed to the numerous incidents of God's interaction with man by seeing His relationship with Israel unfold through the Scriptures.

God uses the Scriptures to communicate to the ones with whom He has a relationship and those who seek a relationship with Him.  He carefully crafted sixty-six books to demonstrate His relationship with man, including Moses and the Prophets.

We are encouraged to read the Word with the enticement that once we taste of it that we will see that the Lord is good.  We will see that He is so good that we will feel the urging to echo the same sentiments as the psalmist and share it with others.

The Word is for both the messenger's filling and fueling.  

• It is his filling for his own satisfaction.  It is good for him to partake of it.  
• It is his fueling for the people's sake, taking the Word to them with the utmost urgency.  

He has tasted of it himself and knows of the value it contains.

Why Your Manna is in a Mess

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.
-Exodus 16:13-21 (ESV)

The bread from heaven that God provides represents our daily supply from God.  God promises to provide enough for us for the present day.  In this episode of scriptural accounts, God commanded through Moses “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” However, the people disregarded the commandment regarding the manna and the manna became a mess.

The manna was a mess because it:

• Spoiled: worms began to breed in the bread
• Stank: the leftovers began to have a stench that emerged
• Stained: the leftover manna left a stain among the people due to their greed

Sadly, the satin that the leftover manna left was a spiritual stain on the people of God.  Their failure to heed the man of God and the word that he carried from God led to their own detriment.

"The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed."

- Mahatma Gandhi