Bread of Heaven

During the Christmas holidays while decorating and preparing for family to arrive, I was singing to myself the carol, "Breath of Heaven". Instead of singing "breath" I found myself singing "bread". The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, "Jesus is the Bread of Heaven". I know that the Bible speaks of Him being the Bread of Heaven, but I want to understand better what that means. In John 6:51, Jesus said, "I am this living bread that came down from heaven". In John 6:48 He said, "I am the Bread of life...this is the Bread that came down from heaven...". In Jn. 6:22-35 Jesus addressed the fact that the people were wanting Him to perform a miracle. He said that God provided the miracle manna (or bread from heaven for daily food) in the wilderness for the Israelites, but now He is the daily provision. Because of His claim, the Jews were finding fault with Him. (Jn 6:53-60) Even His disciples were complaining about this concept. In vs 64, Jesus rebuked them. He told them to trust in Him, have faith, and to dwell continually with Him. If we do, He promises that we will have eternal life (6:54-58). He is our Portion (Heb.-allotment; inheritance; part). He is all we need. He should be our all in all. If we have Him, we have everything! In John 6:57 Jesus sums up the true meaning of this claim, "Just as the Living Father sent Me and I live by (through and because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me (whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me) shall live through and because of Me". What a great privilege! What hope, joy, and peace! Nothing else in this world compares!

The Season of Hope

Everything about the Christmas story involves hope. Hope is a joyful and expectant outcome. It is heartening, being optomistic about the future, and encouraging. In Christ we have hope for our eternal home in heaven. We hope for God's promises. Yesterday I was meditating on hope, what it means Biblically, and this definition came to my mind. Hope is believing that your efforts and or someone elses' will make a difference for a favorable outcome in an unfavorable situation. God is faithful. What He says will happen, will! So many times I become disillusioned and disappointed when I am trusting God for a favorable outcome. Things begin to look like I'm not going to experience God's goodness. Many times I've found that I have had a preconcieved idea of what the outcome should be and I haven't trusted in His faithfulness to work it all out (Romans 8:28). I have jumped to erroneous conclusions. I then begin to fear, become angry, and frustrated. Why??? God has never failed me yet! Why do I, after 30 years of seeing His faithfulness over and over, still doubt that He'll come through for me somehow? Thank God for His mercy!! But for the input of His Word and the precious Holy Spirit in my life, there go I as the Israelites in the wilderness. They jumped to wrong conclusions about God even after they saw the great miracles He did. Many were destroyed because of it (1 Corinthians 10:1-13). As I watched a video about Mary re: the angelic visitation, facing Joseph, her friends, relatives and being single and pregnant, the journey to Bethlehem and all of the hardships she faced, I began to sob. Even though she was carrying the Son of God, she had to go through all of these things? She did and yet she was faithful. God knew that she would be and that is why He chose her (Luke 1:28;30). It's pretty awesome what God did when He sent His only Son into the world. The ways in which He chooses to do things don't make sense to our natural mind (Rom. 8:5-9), but God in His wisdom remains victorious! Let us have our hope restored this Christmas. I want to trust God like never before regardless of how I think He should do things. I know that I will see His goodness after all! (Psalms 27:13-14) "What would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living. Wait and hope for and expect the be brave and of good courage, and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait and hope for and expect the Lord."