DAY TWENTY-EIGHT -- BREAD OF LIFE
Nourisher, Sustainer, Supporter, Satisfaction, Food, Provider
Reflect
Breathe deeply as you sit before the Lord today. As you inhale, take in the wonders of His love, goodness, faithfulness, His very presence with you. As you exhale, breathe out the distractions of the day, the sins you need to confess, the busyness that draws you from His embrace.
As you take each breath, consider the truth that this very breath was granted you by Jesus, that without His permission, you would cease to exist. How would your daily life change if this point were a driving, pulsing reality for you? Ask Jesus to give you a fresh awareness today of your great dependency upon and need of Him for everything. Thank Him for the blessing of life.
Read
Are there any ways in which you feel unsatisfied with your life today? Spend a few minutes jotting a list of the things in your life that do bring you joy and satisfaction. Ponder these as you read the following Scriptures and then the devotional.
I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, And with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.
Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance.
John 6:51, Psalm 81:16, Isaiah 55:1-2
Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, millions of people flock to the
malls, bringing consumer spending to its highest annual level and making it the
best day of the year for retail manufacturers. But over the past few years a
counter-culture movement has sprung up calling for a moratorium on shopping that
day. Purchasing ads, buying billboards and flooding e-mail chains, the group
behind Buy Nothing Day pleads with shoppers to take a stand by
withholding their purchasing power. Who are these people, and what stand do they want us to take? They call
themselves ‘culture jammers,’ a group on mission to cure affluenza, a
societal sickness caused by over-consumption, which they contend produces all
manner of spiritual and environmental ills. Noting that America, with less than
20% of the world's population, consumes 80% of its resources, culture jammers
spend their days finding ways to ‘jam’ the consumer culture in which we live.
The whole thing seems a bit like David coming against Goliath -- young,
passionate zealots trying to take down corporate America by uprooting the greed
that keeps it alive. This is no easy task in a country whose constituents last
year spent $277 billion eating out, $237 billion buying clothes and $6.6 billion
going to the movies. One young man, seeking to explain the why of
American greed, surmised: Over-consumption is just the most obvious symptom
of a larger sickness; our culture is so empty that it needs to stuff itself to
feel full. [see their web site, www.Adbusters.org for a fuller
explanation and philosophy of this movement.]
In reality, over-consumption is a symptom of emptiness -- the emptiness caused by sin in the soul of every human being. We are, by our fallen nature, so empty that no amount of glutting our stomachs or our closets or the hours in our day can fill us. Why? Because our capacity for pleasure is as infinite as the One in whose image we are made. When God created man for Himself, He gave him the ability to enjoy His glory as much as He does-- to see, know, revel in and reflect the beauty of His being, that we might live to exalt Him with praise and delight (Isaiah 43:7). It was a wondrous plan, beyond human comprehension.
But sin soon entered the world, derailing this plan and destroying man's capacity for the only thing that could ever fully satisfy. Jonathan Edwards wrote that when this happened, the excellent and enlarged condition of man’s soul was gone, and thenceforward he himself shrank, as it were, into a little space, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself to the exclusion of all things else. [Edwards, Jonathan, The Spirit Of Charity The Opposite Of A Selfish Spirit, Public Domain, published online at www.JonathanEdwards.com.]
To be lost in sin is to be shrunk up within oneself, ever striving to replenish a void that cannot be filled. This is the condition to which Jesus spoke when He said, I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger. This unqualified utterance declares that Jesus's death on the cross bought far more than we ever dreamed, for through new birth He restores our capacity for the one thing grand enough to satisfy the human soul -- the infinite glory of God.
To come to Jesus as the Bread of life means we no longer endlessly pursue the temporal treasures of this world, for in Him is immeasurable joy. To know Him is to be satiated with the riches of glory. And like the oil and flour for the Zarephath widow's bread, we find that each time we dine at the table of His delights, there is a fresh feast, a repast that reaches to our depths, filling us with desire for more and more (1 Kings 17).
In claiming to be the Bread of life, Jesus disclosed that we dishonor Him most by failing to find our satisfaction in Him. When we relish the passing pleasures of this world, we say by our lives that His magnificence cannot assuage the yearnings of our soul. In this we become a reproach and a grief to our Maker. Like the Israelites, we hear His voice crying out: Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? What injustice did your fathers find in me, that they went far from me and walked after emptiness and became empty (Isaiah 55:2, Jeremiah 2:5)?
The only qualification we need in order to dine at our Lord's table is spiritual hunger, a longing in our souls for lasting joy. We come to Him empty-handed, beggars ravished for the Bread that endures. And when we've tasted and seen that the Lord is good, we cannot help but proclaim to an empty world that there is One who satisfies, One who quenches every desire, One who fills starving souls with His precious presence. This is the wonder of faith, the miracle of Jesus, Bread of life.
Respond
Every day the world holds out delightful fare, and though it may be pleasing to our palates, it will never satisfy the deepest longings of our soul. Jesus the Bread of Life, alone has the power to satisfy us at our core. Are there longings in your soul that you fail to bring to the only One who can satisfy the pangs of spiritual hunger? What are they?
We come to the Bread of Life because happiness cannot be found elsewhere. Thus, our daily Christian walk should be characterized not merely by steps of obedience, but as a pursuit of joy. Is this your experience? Why or why not?
When we fast from the things of this world, whether food, clothing or entertainment, we are not doing without or giving something up, but opening ourselves to the real Bread of Life. It is not a fast, but a feast -- a feast on God Himself who ever lives to nourish our souls for His glory. Ponder this and write a prayer of response.
A Prayer
O Lord how simple you have made it -- as simple as eating my necessary food. All I must do is come, believing You alone can satisfy. You are the Bread of Life and I cannot live even one day without You nourishing my soul by Your presence. Dearest One who was broken that I might taste of glory, I am appalled that I eat the stale bread of this world, thinking I will be filled. But oh the short-lived pleasure of dining on those hollow delights. I hunger now for manna from heaven, I pine for Your presence, and long for Your glory to fill me once again. Come Bread of Life, and fill me up.
Copyright © 2004 Tricia McCary Rhodes