What Are You Feeding Your Soul?
Meta Description: Your spiritual diet shapes who you're becoming. Discover what Ezekiel's strange encounter with a scroll teaches us about feeding our souls well. URL Slug: what-are-you-feeding-your-soul Featured Image: A close-up of an open Bible on a wooden table, with soft natural light — warm, inviting, and focused. A simple cup of coffee or tea nearby adds a personal, everyday feel.
Let me ask you a question I've been sitting with all week: What are you feeding your soul?
It's easy to think carefully about what we put into our bodies. We read labels. We track habits. We make choices based on what we're training for. But how often do we apply that same intentionality to what we're feeding spiritually?
The Diet Serves the Destination
I didn't quit because soda became evil. I quit because I cared about what I was training for.
My diet was connected to my destination.
(Side note: somewhere along the way my destination apparently changed, because Dr. Pepper and I have fully reconciled. The relationship is strong.)
But here's the spiritual question underneath that story: if we understand that what we consistently consume shapes what we're able to do and become physically, why do we so rarely think about it spiritually?
The Strangest Scene in the Old Testament
This past Sunday, I took us to one of the most unusual passages in all of Scripture — Ezekiel chapters 2 and 3.
He feeds him.
"And he said to me, 'Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.' So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, 'Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.' Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey." — Ezekiel 3:1–3
God hands Ezekiel a scroll — covered front and back with words of lamentation, mourning, and woe — and says: Eat it. Feed yourself with it. Fill your stomach.
The order matters here. Before Ezekiel goes, he eats. Before he speaks, he receives. We eat before we speak.
Don't Sample the Word — Consume It
Notice what God doesn't say. He doesn't say taste the scroll. He doesn't say sample it. He says eat. Feed. Fill.
Some of us have become really good at sampling Scripture. Verse of the day. A thirty-second sermon clip. An inspirational quote. And none of those things are bad — a sample can make you hungry. But a sample isn't a meal.
Jesus makes the same point in Matthew 4:4, when He's being tempted in the wilderness after forty days of fasting:
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
Our souls need food. And God's Word isn't a snack for spiritually difficult days — it is nourishment for everyday life.
Here's what I also want you to see: God doesn't merely want His Word in Ezekiel's mouth. He tells him in Ezekiel 3:10, "All my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart." The destination of the scroll is the heart.
God's Word is not merely meant to inform us. It is meant to form us.
What Has Trained Your Appetite?
The scroll Ezekiel ate was filled with hard content — lamentation, mourning, woe. Not exactly a feel-good devotional. And yet Ezekiel says it tasted sweet as honey.
Why? Because the Word is not sweet because everything God says is comfortable. The Word is sweet because it comes from a God who is good.
Some of you might honestly say, "I just don't really enjoy reading the Bible. I open it and I'm not sure what I'm looking at." I'm not going to shame you for that. But I do want to ask: what has trained your appetite?
Constant stimulation. Thirty-second content. Immediate gratification. Noise. Outrage. Avoiding silence. And then we open a book written thousands of years ago that requires attention, patience, and reflection — and we wonder why it doesn't feel immediately satisfying.
Here's the good news: appetites can be retrained.
What you consistently consume shapes what you eventually crave — and that works in both directions.
We Were Never Meant to Eat Alone
God didn't just give us a Bible. He gave us a body of believers.
Acts 2:42 — the verse our church's mission and vision grows from — describes the early church this way:
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."
Teaching. Fellowship. Word. People. Not rivals — together.
A sermon can proclaim Scripture to you. Personal time in God's Word puts you directly before Scripture. Both are irreplaceable. But relational community can ask questions a sermon cannot: What did you hear? Where is this confronting you? What would obedience look like in your situation? How can I pray for you?
Diets are hard to do alone. Isolation works against formation. We need encouragement, accountability, and people who notice when we disappear.
Sometimes we need the church to help us eat.
Your Next Step This Week
As we've been building our 1% rhythms together — God Time (about 1% of your day) and Gather Time (about 1% of your week) — this week I want to add one more: Group Time.
Your challenge is simple: attend three out of four Community Group gatherings this month. Show up. Participate. Be known. Open Scripture together. Ask questions. Practice obedience together.
If you're not in a group yet, come to the next steps table after service, or reach out to us — we'll help you find one.
Because ultimately, Bible reading isn't the destination. Gathering isn't the destination. Community Group isn't the destination. The diet serves the destination.
And for a disciple, the destination is becoming like Jesus.
"I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger." — John 6:35
So let me ask you one more time: What are you feeding your soul? What has had the most access to you? And is your diet preparing you to become the person Jesus is calling you to become?
Watch the full sermon on our YouTube channel, and share this with someone who needs a reminder that their spiritual diet matters.
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