BY GREG CRUM
“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35
Is there anything better than bread fresh from the oven? Sure! Bread fresh from the oven with butter on top! Joking aside, bread has been a staple of the human diet since, well, forever, and for good reason. While some in our day have sworn off bread, and look at it as an alluring evil due to its carbs and calories, there are life altering benefits in bread.
Studies have shown that, due to its various ingredients, bread helps us to manage our blood sugar, feeds good bacteria in our digestive systems, helps us to feel fuller thus reducing our appetites, helps to increase muscle mass, promotes cellular division and helps to mature red blood cells, and can even decrease risks of certain cancers, all the while increasing the body’s serotonin aiding in us “feeling” better through the day.
Bread can be life giving to these bodies of ours, so can you see then why Jesus would make the point of emphasizing that he is the Bread of Life? He is trying to get us to see how important, how life giving, he is to us!
If you’re not new to this column, you know that for some time now we’ve been rethinking what we’ve been told about Jesus. We’ve stated that the world has their opinions of Jesus (and they’ve spread their opinions better than we have), and religion has painted a certain picture of him, but is that really who he is? Is that the way Scripture describes him?
Jesus is much more than the world will ever acknowledge, and much different than religion makes him out to be, but the only way we are going to get an accurate view of our Savior is to look into the infallible Word of God and read those firsthand accounts and testimonies of Christ, most importantly, who Jesus himself said he was and is.
So, that’s what we’ve done. So far we’ve seen that he said he was the Resurrection and the Life, that he was the Way and the Truth, and finally, last week, we noted that he stated that he was our Lord. This week let’s think for a moment of the significance of Jesus calling himself the Bread of Life.
Jesus declared he was the bread of life that would satisfy our hunger forever. What was he trying to tell us here? In this statement Jesus was proclaiming that what bread is to the body, he is to the spirit, soul, and body! Just as natural bread contains ingredients that bring health to our physical bodies, when we partake of Jesus in our lives, filling our hearts and minds with all that he is, he brings life giving nutrients into our whole beings. Think about it, a spirit and soul full of Jesus fortifies our whole being (spirit, soul, and body) with Holy Ghost “vitamins” that promote health to all our systems. All that without the fear of severe weight gain, so have another loaf of Jesus, friend!
Jesus is the Bread of Life, our spiritual staple, that true manna from Heaven, and we should endeavor to partake of that bread daily. Remember Matthew 6:11? We are told to ask God for bread when? Daily! The spiritual point? We need to fellowship with Jesus daily if we are going to truly live in this life. We need the nutrients only he provides every day for our systems to function as designed. He is the satisfaction to our hunger that cannot be satisfied any other way!
Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.