Almost the entire Bible speaks of eating, drinking, and enjoying God. After God created man, He did not give many commandments and regulations for man to keep. Instead, God put man before the tree of life (Gen. 2:9) that man might enjoy the fruit of that tree. The tree of life is a type of God Himself. After man was created, the first impression that God gave to man was that he should eat, drink, and enjoy God.
In Exodus, the Israelites ate the Passover lamb, which is a type of Christ (Exo. 12:21-28). By doing so, they received the strength to walk out of Egypt. While journeying through the wilderness, they became weary, and there was no food. At that time God sent manna from heaven as their daily supply (Exo. 16:4, 14-15, 35). When they were thirsty, God gave them to drink the living water from the riven rock (Exo. 17:6). In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus came. He too spoke of eating and drinking. The Lord Jesus said that He is the bread of life, and that he who eats Him will live because of Him (John 6:35, 51, 57b). He also said that He is the well of living water, and that those who drink of this water will not thirst (John 4:14). Then, in Revelation He said that the overcomers will eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God (Rev. 2:7), and of the hidden manna (Rev. 2:17). At the end of the Bible, the Spirit and the bride are still calling the thirsty sinners to drink of and be satisfied by the water of life (Rev. 22:17).
Man's problem before God is not a problem of behavior, but a problem of eating. If man does not eat, drink, and enjoy God Himself, he will eat and drink things other than God. Through man's eating, drinking, and enjoying of God, God is dispensed into man to be his constituent and element. God does not expect man to do anything. He desires only to become man's food by dispensing Himself into man. For this reason, we must eat, drink, and enjoy God, and we must absorb Him into us so that He becomes our life and everything.
In Luke 14 the Lord spoke a parable in which He likened God to a man who made a great dinner. When the time came, the man sent out the invitation through his slaves, "Come, for it is now ready" (v. 17). God has been processed to become our everything. Today, all we need to do is to come to the feast and eat, drink, and enjoy all that He has prepared for us. We know that a few hours after we eat, the food will be digested and assimilated and will become our nutrients. These nutrients will in turn become our blood and our cells; they will become our constituents and elements. That is why nutritionists say that we are what we eat. Those who eat the Lord will have the Lord mingled and digested within them to become their constituent, supply, and nutrients, and they will be able to live by the Lord.
First Peter 2:2 says, "As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word, that by it you may grow unto salvation." Through regeneration, the believers are born as babes (1 Pet. 1:3, 23). Then they grow in life through the nourishment in the milk of the word. The Bible is like a milk cow. It is also like a fattened calf that has been slaughtered. We not only need to drink the "cow's milk"; we need to eat the "calf's meat" as well. Milk is mainly for babies, whereas meat, which is solid food, is for grown-up persons. Milk refers to the rudiments of the beginning of the oracles of God (Heb. 5:12-13), which is the good word of God and the word of the beginning of the Christ. We have all tasted these good words. The eternal life spoken of in John 3:16 and Romans 6:23, and the words of comfort spoken in Matthew 11:28, are examples of the good word of God. The solid food, on the other hand, is the word of righteousness in the Bible. This word speaks explicitly of God's righteous dealing with His people in His government and administration. In other words, it is the word of God's economy and dispensing. Most Christians do not pay attention to this word. Many people like only the words that comfort and soothe their hearts like candy. We must learn to digest not only milk, but solid food as well, so that we can be delivered from the stage of being babes and can grow and mature in life.