The Living Bread

Identity Found in God

​The High Priest and the Forgiven
The High Priest
The Forgiven
The Blood of Christ
The Living Bread
The Dwelling Place of God
The Distractions
Living Confidently as the Forgiven

The Living Bread
 
This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.  John 6:51b
 
Most of us do not comprehend true hunger.  I can say that my family has never been in a position of not getting enough food to sustain us.  We may not have a Thanksgiving feast every day, but we have always had enough.  The Israelites were cranky – they used to have all the food they wanted and needed.  But now they were roaming around in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat.  They were hungry…and cranky!  Poor Moses.  Poor obedient Moses.  The Lord heard the grumbling and sent manna from heaven.  The manna arrived daily.  Each person was to gather just enough for the day.  Some got greedy and took more, but soon realized that it spoiled overnight.  Not only did this bread from heaven arrive daily, Scripture tells us they ate this for 40 years!  There was no opening up the pantry trying to decide what to make…nope…manna was on the menu again...and again…and again!  And it was enough.
 
Fast forward to Jesus.  John 6 unveils the way Jesus fed 5,000 with five small loaves of bread and two fish.  Everyone ate until they had enough.  Jesus performed this miracle around bread… He knew the analogy He was about to share with them.  Later in John 6, Jesus refers to Himself as the Bread of Life.  Just as God allowed manna from heaven to come down, God fed 5,000 people with those five small loaves of bread, and He sent the bread of life from heaven to fulfill our hunger.  Jesus says in verse 27, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  In verse 35 He says, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry…”
 
What do we hunger for?  (Yes, I have a problem of wanting foods that offer really no nutritional value…)  But, what more do we strive for?  What do we crave?  Do we seek success defined by the world?  Do we go after approval of man?  Are we working for food that spoils?  How would it look if we woke up each day, hungry for the bread of heaven.  If we focused on what Jesus has for us in the day.  What if we recognize the satisfying bread of life that we can consume?  Can we say that He is enough or do we become as the Israelites, unsatisfied and ungrateful?
 
Over and over and over Jesus reminds His followers that those who believes and eats of His flesh shall live forever.  Over and over and over He tells them that the manna given from heaven that their forefathers ate has nothing on Him, the true bread of life – the bread that brings eternity with Him.  Did this sink in to them?  Does it sink in to us?
 
Fast forward to the last supper.  Matthew 26:26, “Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat, this is my body.’”  Luke 22:19 says, “This is my body, given for you.”  The Bread of Life, broken, beaten, flogged, ridiculed, humiliated, spit on, mocked.  For you.  For me.  Jesus says in John 6:51b, “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
 
Jesus offers eternal satisfaction.  He is enough.
 
Take some time to take a look at bread.  Get a piece or a loaf of bread and ask God to allow you to understand even more what Jesus, the bread of life, means to you.  Does He satisfy your hunger?