Bread of Life

Bread.  

I love bread.  All kinds of bread:  rye, pumpernickel, oatmeal, flax & grain, Italian, and of course, French.

Bread is one of the main staples in France.  Besides cheese, chocolate, ham and wine!

There are breads/rolls/croissants served at every.single.meal.  It is part of their lives over there.

A typical breakfast (petit dejeuner) is a croissant or hard roll with cheese, fruit, jam, and a hard boiled egg.  (sometimes).  Oh, and of course, cafe au lait.  Say "lait" if you want milk.  Otherwise you only get black coffee.  And their American coffee is icky. My family asked for "cafe au lait" each morning. Children typically drink "Chocolat chaud" (hot chocolate).  Pear juice or orange juice is offered. Water is always available as well.

My pre-teen, Claire, ate fresh fruit and a hard roll every single morning while we were in Paris. She also switched from chocolat chaud to cafe au lait (yes, we allowed her to drink coffee while on vacation...only because cafe au lait is a small cup half coffee, half steamed milk). She drank water instead of juice.

Courtney, the teenager, drank pear juice and cafe au lait, ate a croissant with Nutella, and fresh fruit and cheese each morning.  She tried a variety of cheeses, as did Dave and I. Our favorite was Emmenthal.

The bread is just soooo good over there.  It really is.  And this got me thinking about spiritual bread.

About the Bread of Life.

Just like my family relied on the daily bread in the hotel each morning, the Israelites relied on the daily bread (manna) from God each day while wandering in the wilderness. (Exodus 16).  And.....

Just like this bread sustains us in the physical, the Bread of Life sustains us in the spiritual.

The Israelites had to rely on God for this daily bread/manna.  

We need to rely on God for our spiritual "feeding". 

The Israelites had to actually take the time to gather the daily bread.

We have to take the time to "gather" God's Bread for us (His Word) by digging in to the Bible (the Word) and letting it "feed" us.  

God's gift to us is LIFE for those who trust in Him and live by His Word.  The people of Israel were disciplined in the desert about this truth by having to be totally dependent on God (for their daily bread). 

Let's see how Moses recorded this in the book of Deuteronomy:

"So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord."  Deut. 8:3

So the Israelites had their daily bread to satisfy their physical hunger, yet God is telling them that HIS WORD is what gives LIFE! (for our spiritual hunger)

In the gospel of John we read in Chapter 6, verses 32-35, that Jesus told the people that His Father (God) gives them the true bread from heaven.  "For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." (v. 33).

And I love this promise in verse 35 which Jesus gave to them: "....I am the bread of life.  He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst."

Jesus is the bread of Life.

We learn how He can satisfy our (spiritual) hunger by reading and spending time in His Word (the Bible).

Are you eating your bread today??

Do you hunger and thirst after God's Word?