Diet & Exercise - Psalm 119

Drilling down on Psalm 119:11, I have to ask the question, “How can ‘hiding God’s word in our heart’ keep us from sinning?” I threw this one out for discussion last night at the dinner table and my 9 year old quickly guided the conversation through the three temptations of Christ in the wilderness and his scriptural response to each. First was the temptation, in his immense hunger, to turn a stone into bread, to which he quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 “…man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” Then, [mis]quoting scripture himself, Satan  tempted Jesus to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and command His angels to rescue Him. Jesus retorted, again from Deuteronomy, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” The final of the recorded temptation here was to fall down and worship Satan with the promise that all the kingdoms of the world would be His. “They already were His!” my kid points out. Again, responding with God breathed words straight out the Deuteronomy, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.” And Satan took his worthless toys and went home crying. Now we have the same arsenal of scripture and same powerful Spirit within us to battle just the same. John 14:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper will remind us of what we’ve been taught. If we’re faithful to a diet of God’s word, which He promises will never return void but will always do what He meant for it to do, then right when we need it, and every time we need it, the Spirit of God within us will reference what we’ve hidden in our hearts and use it to keep us from sinning, to rebuke, teach and edify. And like exercise, the more we listen to these spiritual nudges of scripture from within, the more readily available they’ll become and the better we’ll hear them.