Feeding from the source or eating scraps?

As I was sitting on our deck, eating lunch with the family today, we were able to enjoy several sparrows eating their lunch from our bird feeder. I noticed that some of the sparrows, after scouting out the area from a nearby branch, flew right down to the bird feeder and dug in, eating their fill right from the bird feeder, an almost inexhaustible store of food (to them) – there’s plenty there for many birds to have a filling meal. However, other sparrows, rather than eating from the bird feeder, flew to the ground below the bird feeder, and got their lunch by eating the bird seed that their friends dropped as they ate from the bird feeder above.

If I may, allow me to draw a spiritual connection for us. Some believers have developed the habit of getting their spiritual nourishment from the Word of God, digging into it regularly and consistently, feeding on its spiritual food and nourishing our souls. However, other believers, like the sparrows that fed off the scraps of their friends, get their spiritual nourishment from Sunday’s sermon, perhaps a book they’re reading, a sermon they hear on the radio, or a conversation with a friend who recently had a good “meal” from their own time in the Word. Allow me to encourage each of us that calls ourselves a follower of Jesus to follow his example, and get your primary spiritual food from a regular, consistent time reading God’s Word to us; his letter that gives us instruction, encouragement, comfort, challenge, reflection, and so much more. The more I do this, the more I find exactly what I need in the pages of the Bible. Don’t allow the sum and substance of your spiritual nourishment to come from “the scraps” of others feasting on the Source of all wisdom, God’s Word. Go to the Source, the never ending Supply, and don’t simply survive on the scraps of others.