"I am the Bread of Life"
-Jesus, John 6:48.
Jesus calls Himself many things. For example: "I am the Vine, you are the branches" (John 15:5), "I am the Light of the world" (John 12:46), "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:6). In John chapter 6, Jesus is speaking to the Jewish people about how He has come to give us eternal life, and explains that He is even more important than physical nourishment.
Bread has a very spiritual relevance to the Son of God. In fact, Jesus started His life in Bethlehem, which means "House of Bread" in Hebrew. Bread is considered a gift of God, and a necessity for physical substance of life. Jesus calls Himself the Bread of Life because He is necessary for spiritual and eternal life. "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4..and also Luke 4:4)
In the Passover, the Jews were not allowed to eat yeast in their bread for seven days. There would be a Feast of the Unleavened Bread ("Hag Ha-Matzot"). On that day, the Lord had brought them out of Egypt. Since yeast was a symbol of sin, unleavened bread was symbolizing Jesus- who had no sin. Celebrating the deliverance out of Egypt was reflecting a future event of Jesus delivering us from our sins.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:26 that as often as we eat the bread (and drink the cup), we are proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes again. At the "Last Supper", Jesus said that the bread was His body, and the wine was His blood. He asked us to continue to do this in remembrance of Him. Participating in this makes it possible for the Church to have communion with the incarnate life that became the life of mankind. However, you shouldn't think of Communion as if simply eating and drinking has some sort of magical element to it, because, as you see in John 6:63, "The Spirit gives life, but the flesh counts for nothing." It is a symbolic reference in which we remember what Jesus did, and why.
In John 6, when Jesus is teaching the Jews about "eternal life bread", they ask Him what they had to do in order to fulfill the works God required for that kind of food. Jesus tried to explain that eternal life is a gift, not achieved by works. They were seeking life not through faith, but by the works of the Law. Jesus had a simple answer, though: "The work of God is to do this: believe in the One He has sent." They wanted a miracle to prove that this was true. They meant, by seeing and believing in Christ, to reduce faith to a matter of sight. The Bread of Life is spiritual, not material. They asked Jesus for tangible bread. "I am the Bread of Life", declared Jesus. "He who comes to me will never be thirsty, and never go hungry. But you have seen me, and still do not believe."
There is a hunger in each one of our souls. There's a desire that can't be fulfilled by earthly provisions. We tend to think it can…those earthly provisions may seem to fulfill us. But Christ provides true eternal bread from heaven. Nothing in our lives should be more valuable to us than the spiritual Bread that God gave us. If ever a day goes by that we're seeking fulfillment from something other than this, then we're limiting our spirit to this earth. We need to set our minds towards heaven. This life is so temporary. So small compared to eternity. We may have a happy content life now- but where does it all go when our life is over? It's okay to enjoy our lives, and that's what God wants…. but is that as far as we think? What works can we accomplish to secure our eternity in heaven? Nothing… but accept the eternal Bread that God has provided. Don't put anything else above it! It won't be worth it in the end when we lose this life.
Jesus, let my heart be in worship constantly towards You, who willingly gave Your life to take my place. My heart is grateful towards You took on the death and hell (and then beat it by rising again), so I wouldn't have to- and reconciled me back to God.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
"Tell Them I Didn't Cry"
Go find this at the library!
Written by Jackie Spinner, a reporter for the Washington Post, who volunteered to spend 10 months in Iraq so that she could deliver the truth of the story to the people back home. To people (that's us) who go about their daily life not even consciously realizing (at least not past the surface of knowledge) that on the other side of the world, people are suffering and dying.
Who cares if you're for or against what's going on in Iraq? I don't even know how I feel. But I do know, that after reading this book, that I feel silly for the things I complain about in daily life, when meanwhile, people are going about their day in another world over there, wondering if they'll live another day. The people that Jackie talked to were usually very grateful for the reason the U.S. was there, but the consequences of war are just everywhere.
As I was in church yesterday, in worship, it brought tears to my eyes just to think about how lucky I am to have the freedom for that. I can walk into a church and not be afraid that it might get attacked by a bomb. Sure, it happens here in the U.S., things like that… but not everyday, everywhere, all the time. We don't have to be afraid to do things that seem so simple. Jackie talks about how she would print out pictures of herbs and vegetables from "google" as a shopping list, so that her Iraqi staff members could go to the grocery store for her, as it was too dangerous at one point for her to do so. She talks about their regular budget, and how they needed to "get back in the black with the guy they paid not to kill them". She spent almost her whole time there dressed in attire to be disguised as an Iraqi woman, and not recognized as a westerner. And even still, she was almost kidnapped once (a Marine rescued her).
Here I am sitting here thinking about what I might eat for lunch today, or if I'll have enough time to get all my errands done before our company comes tonight. What if, in addition to that, I had to worry about which would be the safest route to do those errands, or if I'd still have electricity by the time our company arrives? Or what if I had to worry that my company would even make it alive? What if I had to worry that I'd make it back in time before the "curfew", even though I had to wait three hours in line for a "car bomb check point" . What if I had to worry about keeping the volume down while the company was here- having to go outside every so often to see how loud it might be to Iraqi insurgents listening nearby?
We are so lucky and blessed… and we know it… but we don't even really know it.
Written by Jackie Spinner, a reporter for the Washington Post, who volunteered to spend 10 months in Iraq so that she could deliver the truth of the story to the people back home. To people (that's us) who go about their daily life not even consciously realizing (at least not past the surface of knowledge) that on the other side of the world, people are suffering and dying.
Who cares if you're for or against what's going on in Iraq? I don't even know how I feel. But I do know, that after reading this book, that I feel silly for the things I complain about in daily life, when meanwhile, people are going about their day in another world over there, wondering if they'll live another day. The people that Jackie talked to were usually very grateful for the reason the U.S. was there, but the consequences of war are just everywhere.
As I was in church yesterday, in worship, it brought tears to my eyes just to think about how lucky I am to have the freedom for that. I can walk into a church and not be afraid that it might get attacked by a bomb. Sure, it happens here in the U.S., things like that… but not everyday, everywhere, all the time. We don't have to be afraid to do things that seem so simple. Jackie talks about how she would print out pictures of herbs and vegetables from "google" as a shopping list, so that her Iraqi staff members could go to the grocery store for her, as it was too dangerous at one point for her to do so. She talks about their regular budget, and how they needed to "get back in the black with the guy they paid not to kill them". She spent almost her whole time there dressed in attire to be disguised as an Iraqi woman, and not recognized as a westerner. And even still, she was almost kidnapped once (a Marine rescued her).
Here I am sitting here thinking about what I might eat for lunch today, or if I'll have enough time to get all my errands done before our company comes tonight. What if, in addition to that, I had to worry about which would be the safest route to do those errands, or if I'd still have electricity by the time our company arrives? Or what if I had to worry that my company would even make it alive? What if I had to worry that I'd make it back in time before the "curfew", even though I had to wait three hours in line for a "car bomb check point" . What if I had to worry about keeping the volume down while the company was here- having to go outside every so often to see how loud it might be to Iraqi insurgents listening nearby?
We are so lucky and blessed… and we know it… but we don't even really know it.
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