TUESDAY November 19th
John 6:35 ‘Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”’
I have stayed with the same ‘I am’ statement for today, for Jesus in his statement continues to say that not only will those who come to him not hunger, but also that they will never thirst.
Naturally speaking these are the two things that we need to satisfy continually, our hunger and our thirst. I have never tried to see how long I could go without eating or drinking, but if I did try, I think it is the thirst that would break me first. I love my tea and coffee, perhaps too much and will probably drink up to 8 if not more sometimes, mugs of tea or coffee every day. I could manage a lot longer without eating.
But I wonder how often we starve ourselves spiritually! We ensure we have our meals, maybe up to 3 or 4 times a day, plus a snack in between and like me ensure that there is a ready supply of tea, coffee or whatever else. We make every effort to make sure that we are provided for in the natural. Now, that is of course proper and right, but do we give the same attention to our spiritual well-being, perhaps too often we are more willing to skip spiritual food than we are to skip the natural!
In Matthew during what we call the temptation of Jesus, when tempted by the devil, Jesus replied to him these words ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’, in other words, yes we need the natural bread, but we also need the spiritual bread, that is we partake of Jesus who is the bread of Life and we partake daily of the written word of God which is what we may call our daily bread.
In the sermon that Jesus gave on the mount he said ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied’, now, righteousness means right living, but in 1 Corinthians 1:30 we read that Jesus has become to us from God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, therefore to hunger and thirst after righteousness means to hunger and thirst after Jesus and in his I am statement, Jesus is telling us that as we hunger after him as the bread of life, we will never hunger and we will never thirst.
I have a stomach that rumbles a lot, sometimes rather loudly! But it is a sign to me that I am getting hungry, and I need to eat.
Can I ask, how often do you get some spiritual rumbles because you are not being filled daily with all that Jesus the living bread is willing to give you. Make sure that you give the same attention to being satisfied spiritually as you would to being satisfied physically.