My friend, we are all eating something in this life.
What are you eating?
The forbidden food that doesn’t satisfy and never will?
Or The Christ
who satisfies the longing soul?
Oh taste and see that HE IS GOOD!
The Bible tells us that sin has separated us from God.
This separation first occurred in the Garden of Eden
when Adam and Eve rebelled against God.
It was an act of EATING what God forbid to EAT
that plunged the whole human race
both PHYSICALLY & SPIRITUALLY INTO DEATH.
Eve saw, and liked what she saw, and ate it
- regardless of what God said.
Adam likewise.
And mankind has been following suit ever since
- seeking satisfaction in forbidden things.
Exchanging the glory of God for temporal cravings.
Forsaking The Fountain of Living Waters for broken cisterns.
Suppressing whatever knowledge we have of God
and resisting His rightful rule over us!
In fact, the Bible says our minds,
by nature, are hostile to God.
They CANNOT and WILL NOT submit to Him.
And that’s because we love darkness more than light.
This is the sad commentary on the human race.
By nature, we ALL love & crave & feed upon evil and unrighteousness.
Like slaves, people are in bondage to all kinds of sinful passions,
constantly seeking to satisfy their corrupt desires.
You ever stand in the check out lane of the grocery store
and look over at the magazine rack?
What do you see?
You see the multi-millionaire movie star or singer.
The guy who really MADE IT BIG and everyone wants to be!
Boy is he lucky!
He’s got it all!
But there he is on the Cover:
with a headline Coming Out Of Rehab For Drug Addiction,
or caught stealing/cheating, or going on his 3rd/4th divorce,
bankrupt, on trial, miserable, broken, unhappy,
and in some cases held together by plastic surgery.
Why?
NONE OF IT SATISFIES.
That’s why depression, anxiety, jealousy, strife, anger, drunkenness,
and a whole host of other sins EXIST.
Chasing after this world ruins us.
It fills us with empty promises
that ONLY make us fit for the judgment of God.
It’s like a bad country song that ends in THE nightmare of ALL nightmares.
Coming FACE to FACE with The One whose glory is a consuming fire.
Even the greatest morsels of sin can never truly satisfy
the deepest need of our soul:
union and fellowship with a loving and holy God.
The God who made us.
The God who says we were made for Him.
Yet, we choose EVIL.
We love EVIL.
We eat it & consume it like it’s going out of stock.
YET INSTEAD OF IT actually satisfying us,
it ONLY serves to destroy us.
Death & Destruction - that’s our Bread of Choice.
This is the Bad News the Gospel addresses.
Because left to ourselves,
we are like walking corpses without hope and without God in this world.
And If we die in that state,
we will spend eternity separated from the Living God,
suffering His righteous judgment in hell FOREVER.
Jesus comes along as says I AM The Bread of Life.
Knowing man’s helpless condition,
God mercifully sent his Son to dwell among us in the person of Jesus Christ.
He lived a perfect life,
and by doing so became a perfect sacrifice for sin.
Compelled by love, He did the unthinkable by offering Himself as a substitute for guilty
sinners.
He bore our sins in His body on the tree.
He paid the penalty for sin by suffering God’s wrath FOR US.
Three days later he rose from the grave,
conquering SIN, DEATH, and The Devil.
Doing so, He successfully paved the way for sinners
to be made right with a Holy God.
HOWEVER - Jesus death was NOT some blanket offering
covering ALL the sins of ALL people in the WHOLE WORLD.
No.
Just like food only gives life to our body if we partake of it,
so Jesus ONLY GIVES LIFE to our soul if we partake of Him.
He says, Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you.
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,
and I will raise him up on the last day.
Jesus uses His own body as a metaphor to communicate what real spiritual union with Him looks like.
He takes the most common physical experience
- eating and drinking -
[the VERY act that condemned us]
and essentially tells us I AM everlasting BREAD & DRINK.
What I provide is NOT temporal satisfaction,
BUT everlasting satisfaction.
I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger,
and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
He says, the water that I will give YOU will become IN YOU
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
Like bread,
Jesus was broken by the father to heal our brokenness.
He is THE BREAD that satisfies every human hunger,
and THE DRINK that satisfies every human thirst.
He is the TRUE FOOD & TRUE DRINK (John 6:55),
and He offers Himself as a feast for your soul.
How can you receive this life-giving feast for your soul?
You must repent of your sin - that is,
change your mind about YOUR SIN,
and The God BEFORE WHOM you stand guilty.
Abandon SELF, LOOK to Jesus,
and consume Him by faith.
The Bible says we are saved by grace through faith,
and not of our own doing.
This means that in order to partake of The Bread of Life,
we must trust in the blood & righteousness of Jesus Christ ALONE and nothing that we do.
Streams of mercy and grace flow to the soul who looks to Christ alone BY FAITH.
Not only will ALL your sin be forgiven,
Jesus will then become the BREAD and DRINK that forever satisfies your soul.