Bread of Life

They say that food is the fuel for life’s engine. Life’s motor simply won’t run if you don’t eat. Like most analogies, the “engine as life” analogy has a point at which it breaks down. For instance, I can park my car and turn the motor off for an extended period of time. I don’t need to refuel it constantly. Much later I can restart the engine, and we are off and running again. You just can’t park life. Well, that’s not quite true.  In the laboratory we can freeze specially treated cells at -196° C (-3210 F) in liquid nitrogen and keep them indefinitely without having to feed them. Much later we can thaw the cells, and the life processes resume as if nothing had happened. But under normal conditions, every life-form has to eat to live.

In the Bible bread represents food, the energy for fueling life. The Hebrew word pronounced lekh-em means “bread” or “food” interchangeably. The food that we eat our bodies will digest and process, turning  it into the blood  sugar glucose and amino  acids and fatty acids that cells recognize as their food. And at the cellular level, the products of food digestion need to be constantly coming in at precisely regulated levels. An individual can go several hours to several days without food, but your cells can’t. They must have a second-by-second   supply if they are   to live. Cut off their food sup­ply, and cells will die within seconds or minutes.

The analogy of Jesus as the bread of life to maintain the spiritual life is incredibly significant.  Just as I must sustain my physical life by eating or internalizing bread, so I preserve  my spiritual  life by partaking  of or internalizing  God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit through  daily prayer, by spending time deeply studying  God’s Word, and by being filled with the Holy Spirit. Without that moment-by-moment spiritual energy stream, we die spiritually.

In the wilderness God sent manna to teach the importance of daily dependence. It tasted sweet and obviously had excellent nutrition, because His people lived on it for 40 years. Every day it was there, but they had to collect it. How will you gather your manna for this day?

Lord, thank You for the miracle of the grain that feeds my body through the daily bread from Your hand. Feed my soul with a fresh infilling of Your Holy Spirit. May I live, body and soul, for You today.