Jesus, The Bread of Life!

33 The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.” 35 Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. John 6:33-35(NLT)

By Alexandra Copeland
Many people are starving today, and they do not realize that the nature of their hunger is a spiritual one. God created us to thrive through our connection to Him through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In John 14:6 (KJV), our blessed Lord said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” This verse is astoundingly simple, yet there are so many who wish to complicate or distort it. For those of us who desire to know God and bask in the glory of His love, this is the greatest news imaginable, because Christ provided a way for us to be reconciled to God, not just for a moment in time, but for all of eternity.

The enormity of what God has given us is almost incomprehensible. Many of us struggle to believe it because God’s love is so great. Romans 8:38-39 tells us, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” You might think to yourself, “Well, I do not feel so close to God. If I were really very close to Him, shouldn’t I have more power and ability than what I have today?”

This is not an unreasonable question. God is GOD! He’s the Almighty, The Alpha and Omega. He’s omnipresent and omnipotent, the Creator of all. So considering His incomparable power, if nothing can separate us from His love, shouldn’t we have some of this power as well? The answer is “we do!” We have power through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our Great Redeemer laid down his life in order that we might live an eternity. 1Peter 1:23 (NLT) says, “For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.” We are forever beings. Our bodies will return to dust, should the Lord tarry, but our souls will live forever. If that isn’t power, I don’t know what is.

Our Lord and Savior is THE WAY! He is the only way to be connected to the One True God. The life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of our Lord has demonstrated for us, as sons and daughters of the Most High God, how to believe and walk uprightly. He taught us that right way of believing. There are many ways in which people can choose to believe, especially today. There are many false prophets and many doctrines that are not based on God’s Word, the bible, but we are not to get it twisted; Jesus Christ is the living Word of God. He’s the only Way.

There is a need on the part of many people to take some of the words of Christ and leave the others; this makes them comfortable in their refusal to rise to God’s standard of believing. Well, the wonderful thing about our Heavenly Father is that if a person wants to live beneath their privilege, He will not stop them; but we have a right to want His absolute best for our lives, and this is what He has made available through Christ. Every dream and desire that God had for humanity was fulfilled in His Son. The life of Christ demonstrated for us the infinite grace of God and the degree to which we could live by it and be free of bondage of every kind.

Jesus Christ is THE TRUTH! There are some people who say that they want to follow Christ, because they think of him in only the warmth and fuzzy sense, but Jesus Christ was the business. He was in no way wimpy as some might think. In John 10:18(NLT) he said, “No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”  Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is the living, breathing Word of God.

In John 6:35 (NLT), he said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” This is more than fact, it is the truth! If you go to the mall or to the grocery store today, you see people walking around as if they are lost. You can sense the starvation of spiritual nourishment in their lives. They, like each and every one of us, need Jesus; because he is the truth and he will help us in ways that we can’t begin to know.

John 4:24(KJV) tells us, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” We cannot go in the forest, hug a tree, and call it worship. God would not leave this incredibly important aspect of a believer’s life to the devices of humans. Some people want to design their own way to reach out to God, but the Father has laid down exact and precise instructions. He said that we must worship Him in spirit AND in truth. The only way for us to worship God IN spirit is to receive spirit. And the only way to receive spirit is to believe upon the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, and make him the head of our lives. This is how we become born again, and receive the indwelling Holy Spirit.

The indwelling Holy Spirit resides inside of us. John 16:13 tells us that he is our teacher and our helper. He, the indwelling Holy Spirit, is a gift from God, and he will guide us into ALL truth! Not just some truth, but ALL truth! What truth are we talking about here? The answer is the Word of God of course. The spirit will help us to know God through Christ as we read and study the bible! Isn’t it wonderful that we do not have to do this all on our own?!

In John 8:29 (KJV), Jesus said of himself, “And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.” The Father sent His only begotten son to earth to do what no other could. Everything that Christ did was precisely synchronized to the Father’s wishes. He, the son, always pleased God, the Father. This is our DNA—the spirit that we have on the inside of us is the same Father-pleasing spirit that Christ has. It’s why we can be absolutely sure that we are pleasing to God and that we are worshipping Him in truth, because of the Christ spirit that dwells in us. We are connected to God because of AND through Christ. His love for us made all this possible.

Jesus Christ is THE LIFE. After the fall of Adam and Eve, humankind was spiritually dead. We lost that precious and powerful connection to God. Romans 5:12 (NLT) says, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” Boy, we were in quite the pickle, but Jesus Christ rescued us from this miserable state.

Acts 4:12(NLT) tells us, “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.” Oh, Hallelujah! We are saved from an eternity of death through our precious Lord! His blood washed away our sins forever and we can look forward to spending forever with him. Knowing this ought to feed our hearts and minds continually, because Jesus, the living Word of God, is truly the way, the truth, and life; and if we’ll believe it and trust it with our whole hearts, we’ll never be the same. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright ©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.