“This is the Bread which has come down from heaven, not just like the fathers ate and died; the one who chews this bread will live forever.”
(John 6:58 One New Man)
I remember when I was growing up my mother wouldn’t allow me nor my siblings to say we were starving. She would then tell us about the children who didn’t have food and how they were truly starving. She said we might be hungry but we certainly weren’t starving. I’ve carried that teaching into my adulthood and still only say I’m hungry when I need something to eat. Even if the hunger is strong, I still never say I’m starving. I say I’m really hungry. As long as we are still alive here on earth we have to feed our flesh or we will starve to death. We can only go about two or three days without water but we can survive thirty to forty days without any kind of food.
When it comes to feeding our spirit the survival rate from starvation is more deadly than starvation of the flesh. Not having consumption of daily spiritual food takes less time than the thirty or forty days of natural food to start seeing weakness from starvation. If we have a spirit that is dying of starvation there is an eternal consequence that would never satisfy the soul. We have to chew on the Bread every day that will allow us to live forever. Just like we have to eat a nutritional meal every day to sustain our physical body, we also have to eat the nutrients of the word of God to sustain our spirit. The word of God has more nutritional value than any vitamin or living enzymes you could ever take. The bible lets us know the supplemental value of His Word is living and powerful (Hebrews 4:12). Our spirit cannot survive on natural food. We have to be fed manna from heaven every day. The greatest example that helps us realize that it is a daily need was when God fed them manna in the wilderness. He instructed them to only gather enough for the day. He wanted to show how we have to have faith and depend on Him every single day. If I made a sandwich to eat today, I can’t expect that sandwich to keep me full until the next week. It’s the same way with the word of God. I can’t expect to be sustained by feasting on the bread of life today and not eating of it again for a couple of weeks. When Jesus was teaching them how to pray in Matthew 6:11, He said we should request our bread daily. The Greek word for bread could also mean necessary for our existence.
When they were in the wilderness the bible lets us know that a mixed multitude were among those that left Egypt who were non Israelis that got fed in the wilderness also (Numbers 11:4). Paul also mentions them in 1 Corinthians 10:3 and stated that all was fed the same food. All of this was a shadow of Christ who was coming as the Bread of Life. He was coming to feed everyone that would receive Him from all nations. God has always shown us that in the time of famine, He will always provide. Elisha in 2 Kings 4:42-44 showed us the Lord’s multiplication with the bread during a famine in Gilgal. When a man brought to Elisha of his First Fruits which included twenty loaves of barley bread Elisha, instructed for them to give to the people to eat. His attendant spoke just as the disciples did to Jesus that there would not be enough food to feed everyone. They asked Elisha how were they going to feed at least a hundred men with that amount. Just as Jesus instructed his disciples Elisha gave his attendants instructions to feed the men according to the Word of the Lord. So after they fed the men, they left just as Elisha had spoken, according to the Word of the Lord. In the book of Isaiah when he gives instructions on the correct way to fast he mentions during our fast we should be sharing our bread (Isaiah 58:7). So even when we consecrating our lives and go without natural food to receive from God we should still be feeding our bread to others. When Jesus was feeding the five and four thousand we always only look at the miraculous part of those scriptures; how he fed some many with so little. I also believe He was letting us know once we feed and feast on His Word we should have fragments left over to feed others. Just as Isaiah said regarding fasting, “share your bread”, which means you should already have bread available to share. It’s the same way with the spiritual bread. You have to fill up your basket with the Bread of Life every day in order to have left over fragments to sow into others. I encourage you to feed and get full on the Word of God every single day.
