Who Wants Seconds?

THE GREATEST WORDS EVER SPOKEN IN A CAFETERIA
Life has a way of flipping upside down when you become an adult. When you were a child, you gave a fuss to your parents because you didn’t want to take a nap. Now, you give a fuss to your children because you want to take a nap. When you were a child, you threw a fit because you didn’t want to eat all of your food. As an adult, you’re hoping that there are seconds so that you can eat even more, even if you shouldn’t.
“SECONDS!” That one word brought a feeling of delight to myself as a college student in the dining hall in Bible college. On a tight budget and with a youthful body, a pb&j just didn’t cut it for dinner on the job site. I lived by the see-food diet – if I saw there was food, then I ate the food. Many of us (mostly guys…but not all), would rush up to the counter in the college cafeteria like hungry puppies begging for another bite.
GOD’S CALLING FOR A SPIRITUAL APPETITE
When you come to church, I want you to think of just obliterating your favorite homecooked meal and the joy that you feel when your mother asks, “Do you want seconds? There is plenty.” The Word of God and truth is described in several places in the Bible as bread, milk, water, and physical nourishment. We even see God tell certain men to eat His Words. If you don’t believe me, look up Jeremiah 15:16, Ezekiel 3:1-3, and Revelation 10:9-11. Of course, this is figurative language, but God uses this terminology for a reason.
In Hebrews 5:12-14, we see the people being rebuked for not growing in their appetite towards the Word of God. They were still on a baby, milk-based diet when they should have developed their spiritual molars to chew on a juicy ribeye. Instead, they were stuck to their formula bottles that reeked of their anorexic disorder.
A BIG APPETITE
We find an example of a people in Acts that had a big appetite for the Bible. They were not satisfied with taste-testing the Bible. They were like a new convert at a Baptist potluck in the south balancing multiple plates while going through the line. They wanted to consume it. Acts 17:10-11 tells us, “These {the Bereans} were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Note – the quotation is mine.
What was so great about these Bereans? When they went to church and heard the preacher get up and boldly preach from the Book, they went home and they continued on in that study. They wanted seconds after they were fed the main course in the house of God. It wasn’t enough just to hear it from a man, they wanted to enjoy it all over again in their homes.
THE BEREAN EFFECT
Let me suggest some great reasons to follow this practice:
1- You will learn more – Research shows that your understanding of a subject increases through repetition, but also through different means of learning. Listening, reading, and writing are different ways to learn something. If you practice all three – listen to the preacher, read it for yourself, and take notes – then you will learn more than those sitting on padded pews with nothing in their lap except for their phone in their hand. Think of what will happen if you repeat this at home while you get your seconds!
2- You won’t be deceived – The latter part of those verses said that the reason these Bereans did this was so that they could see “whether those things were so”. They didn’t want to just take the preacher at his word, they wanted to see it for themselves. We would have a lot less of the false teachers in our day if we had more Bereans in our churches.
3- You will develop a personal walk – Instead of sitting in awe of what your preacher learned from the Bible, you must learn to exercise your own spiritual muscles at some point if you want to be strong spiritually. Think of a workout routine. The first week is rough. You are very sore and a little discouraged. Then, you get into a groove. You can’t expect to be Mr. Olympia the first time you open the Book. You must stick with it day after day.
Go feast on those seconds. You’ll never consume too many calories with God. In fact, the more you consume of God’s nutrition, the better off you’ll be. Be like the Bereans!









