Doughnuts

The only thing that I don't like about eating a doughnut is having someone nearby say, "Try to eat it without licking your lips!"

 

I have tried this once and only once.

 

And I only got a few mouthfuls in before I stopped. 

 

I find it the most irritating thing ever.  I don't like the feeling of sticky sugar coating my lips and making them feel fuzzy.  There is nothing at all enjoyable about the challenge.

 

I don't like the feeling of sugar on my lips.  But the Bible urges us to keep something on our lips, without wiping it away: His Word.

"Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.  Then you will be prosperous and successful."

[Joshua 1:8 NIV]

 

There is not much point reading something and instantly forgetting it, letting it dissolve before it has taken root.  In the same way, we should keep God's words constantly in our minds and our hearts and on our lips.

"But don’t just listen to God’s word.  You must do what it says.  Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.  For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.  You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.  But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it."
 

[James 1:22-25 NLT] 
 

God urges us not to just to read and remember and obey His words, but to always have them on our lips. To keep them on the tip of our tongues, to let them flavour the words we use.

 

In the same way that the sugar can't help but stick to our lips when we eat a doughnut, I want God's Word to stick to my heart and to stick to my lips, every time I read it.