Our Daily Bread

In John 6:48-51, Jesus says, “I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” When the Israelites were traveling through the wilderness, God gave them food rations sufficient for a single day. He did this everyday for at least six days a week throughout their forty years of wandering. If they gathered more than what they needed for a single day, the extra would spoil by the next day. This is likely one of the tests that God gave them to manifest their level of trust in Him. They needed to believe that once their day’s supply of food was gone, God would still be faithful on the next day to provide what they needed to sustain them.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). This is not just a request for physical food, nor is it just (even as I have previously thought) a reminder to read the Bible daily. This latter suggestion, however, can help guide us to a more appropriate understanding of this text from the Lord’s prayer when we also realize that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word was made flesh” (John 1:1, 14). But the text from John 6 tells us plainly that our daily Bread is Christ Himself. Jesus came that we “might have life, and that [we] might have it more abundantly.” So we are being taught to pray daily for Christ to be our sustaining life. We are being reminded to daily partake of Christ’s flesh and drink of His blood.

We are what we eat. We become that of which we partake. So if you are called to be like Christ, if you want the glory of His Spirit’s presence to shine through you, if you would have eternal life, if you long for “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” then exercise faith and hope in Him by regularly praying, “Give us this day our daily bread.”