Danish bread – Emmanuel Pentecostal Church Gateshead Resources

SATURDAY 1st

John 6:22-35

NIV (v35) – ‘Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

ESV (v35) – ‘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.’

As we continue from yesterday’s devotion, where Jesus had said that he was the bread of life, I will continue today and tomorrow with the subject of bread as seen in the Scripture, looking at two separate verses, for today:

Luke 4:1-1-4 ‘And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.’

In the first Scripture we are taken to the account where Jesus is in the wilderness and being tempted by the devil. There are three temptations,

To turn a stone to bread
To worship the devil
To throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple

The first was to do with hunger as we are told that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, and during that time he had ate nothing. Understandably, he was hungry, and the devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ This was a quote from the OT in Deuteronomy 8:3 ‘And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.’

A couple of thoughts here, the devil says ‘If you are . . .’ it always makes me smile, for the devil knew without any shadow of doubt who Jesus was and that he really was the Son of God, what he was trying to do was to weasel into what he thought would be a weak point on Jesus behalf (his hunger) and as a result get Jesus to take the devils advice and put it into action, making the stone into bread. If Jesus had done this, it would have been a landmark victory for the devil and would have led to the failure of the plan of salvation. (As would have been the yielding to the other two temptations)

The devil is as we are reminded in Scripture going about like a roaring lion, seeking who he can devour. (1Peter 5:8 ‘Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’) We could put it this way, he is prowling around or sniffing around to see if he can find our weak points, our vulnerabilities and he would love to try to trick us into conceding to any temptation he would bring our way to try to snare us, trap us and to trip us up.

Jesus responded to the devil with a Scripture, and for us as well, we need to realise that among many other things Scripture is a tool or a weapon we need to take up and use as a defence and protection against the wiles of the devil. In Ephesians 6, the Word of God is pictured as the sword, ‘. . . and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.’ I do not know about you, but I think the devil could do with a few plunges of this amazing sword! May God help each of us, however long we may have been a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, to never give into the wiles of the devil, but to be determined in our hearts to wholeheartedly devote ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Daily Devotion July 31st

FRIDAY 31^st

John 6:22-35

NIV (v35) – ‘Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

ESV (v35) – ‘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.’

We come today to the first narrative in John’s gospel to contain one of what we call the ‘I Am’ statements of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are seven of them altogether:

John 6:35 ‘I am the bread of life.’

John 8:12 ‘ I am the light of the world.’

John 10:7-9 ‘I am the door.’

John 10:10 ‘I am the good Shepherd.’

John 11:25 ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’

John 14:6 ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’

John 15:1 ‘I am the true vine.’

In our Scripture for today, Jesus calls himself or refers to himself as the bread of life or living bread seven times. Verses 32, 33, 35, 41, 48, 51 and 58.

The crowds that had enjoyed the meal of loaves and fishes had decided to look for Jesus again the next day, and who could blame them if there was the possibility of another free meal! I would have been there for sure if it had been something else instead of fish! But Jesus discerned that their motives for coming to him again were not genuine, it was only for the free meal and not because of who he really was. V27 ‘Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves . . .’

It is out of the continuing dialogue that Jesus had with the crowd that we learn that he is the bread of life. They challenged Jesus about the time when Moses had fed the children of Israel in the wilderness with the manna which they described as bread from heaven, because it appeared on the ground every morning. (Exodus 16) Jesus replies by saying that it wasn’t Moses that had provided the bread, but rather his (that is Jesus’) Father and he then incorporates the statement to take on a present reality for them by saying ‘ . . .my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is HE who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ In the wilderness the bread, manna was a substance they could collect and eat, but here the bread was not a substance that they could collect and eat, but was in fact a person (he), who was the ‘Word who had become flesh’ whom if we believe in will grant eternal life.

The manna or bread in the wilderness only sustained life for a period, they had to collect a fresh supply every day and eat to survive, but the true bread, the living bread gives eternal life! We come by faith and partake of him, and as we eat and drink, we receive the life he offers. It is in the same chapter that Jesus speaks of eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood to have eternal life (John 6:53-58) Jesus isn’t saying that we have to literally eat of his flesh and literally drink of his blood, we know that this is not possible, he is using language that speaks or signifies of us partaking of him by faith, it is our accepting him, or believing that he the bread of life, as being the one who God has sent to grant eternal life, it is a figure of speech to describe that as by faith we believe, we are partaking of the bread of life and are being saved.

I do not eat a lot of bread, I have mentioned in a previous devotion that I like going to ‘Subway’ which uses a bread roll for the sandwich, I could go days without eating bread. I went to Denmark a few years ago for a conference, and in the morning as you woke up there would be this beautiful smell filling the air, and as I made my way the first time for breakfast, the smell was incredible, it was Danish bread and I couldn’t eat enough of it, it is most definitely the best bread I have ever eaten, well, almost! For I am glad that I have come to receive of the ‘bread of life’ he is the best bread ever!