BREAD OF HEAVEN

The Lord taught His disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  It is true that this refers to our daily provision of food, but more importantly, I believe God was referring to His Word that He speaks daily to us.  Just as man cannot survive for long without natural food, neither can he survive spiritually without the Word of God.  Our natural life subsists on one kind of food, but our spiritual life subsists on another kind of food altogether.  Jesus told the devil during His temptation in the wilderness, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”  He also refers to Himself as the “Bread of Life” in John 6.  Therefore, this daily bread is the portion of Himself that He reveals to us through His Word to make us strong spiritually.  After all, Jesus is the Word made flesh.  Without a daily dose of the Word, we will grow weak and undernourished as Christians.

 

You see, salvation is a process, a road that we follow with the Lord.  Our Christian experience does not merely consist of accepting Christ and going to heaven – there is a whole journey in between.  To be “born again” implies that we are babies to begin with, but must grow into adulthood.  It is not God’s intention that we remain babies forever.  He desires that we mature into the measure and the stature of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:14, 15).  To accomplish this great task, it is essential that we feed daily from the “Bread of Life.” 

 

When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness under Moses’ leadership, God miraculously sent manna to them daily to satisfy their hunger and to sustain them.  It was sent every morning and fell on the ground like the dew.  The people merely had to venture out and gather it in baskets.  If they gathered too much, however, and tried to use it the next day, it would rot, stink, and be useless.  They had to gather it new every day.  Every sixth day was the exception, though.  They could gather twice as much on that day only, and it would keep through the Sabbath so that they did not have to gather on that day and could devote themselves to God. 

 

God gives us here a clear indication of how important it is that we hear a fresh word from Him regularly – something vibrant, something alive, something that speaks to our heart and spirit, and challenges us to be more like Christ.  We should never settle for something day-old that does not speak to our soul or our present need.  The Word that we heard yesterday spoke to the needs of yesterday, but does not fit the needs of today.  What we desperately need is to get before the Lord daily, learning to hear from Him and see Him, and not just give Him our daily to-do list! 

 

The prophet Amos told of a time when there would be a famine in the land.  It would not be a famine of bread or of meat, but of hearing the words of the Lord (see Amos 8:11).  Could it be that in a time when God’s Word is everywhere – in print, in the pulpits, and on the airwaves – that many Christians haven’t discovered how to hear from God in a personal way and are starving to death?  Remember, faith does not come from listening to the Word of God, but from hearing the Word of God.  Hearing is being actively engaged in what the speaker is saying, and applying it to our personal condition.  This is the thing that will sustain our spiritual life.  Christianity is not a ritual or a set of habits, but a relationship with the one true Giver of life. 

 

Some Christians tend to shy away from the “hard sayings” of God: the things that challenge them and require a change in their habits or nature.  The Word is like a double-edged sword, though, that divides the soul and spirit and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).  It reveals our true motives.  Sometimes those motives are very self-serving, and we may mask them so much in a guise of doing good that we are unaware of our true intent ourselves.  God’s Word will cut through the falsehood and reveal the truth, but, at the same time, encourage us and give us grace to be better.  We must be willing to be naked and open before the eyes of God so that He can then transform us a little more into His image each day. 

 

Psalm 94:12 tells us, “Blessed is the man whom Thou chasteneth, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law.” The book of Hebrews also states that, “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” (Hebrews 12:6).  There is a great deal of work that God wants to do in you and me through the Holy Spirit’s tutelage.  We need to be trained, and sometimes we need to feel the rod of correction!  The good news is that God wouldn’t bother if He didn’t love us and have something good planned for us.  What greater honor is there than to be trained by God Himself?  Let us, therefore, gladly receive the Daily Bread from His hand, and grow and be nourished by our Heavenly Father in all things.  Let us learn what Jesus meant when He said, “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.”  (John 6:57).

 

“But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth and eat that I give thee.” (Ezekiel 2:8).