Jesus is Our Bread

The reality in our relationship with God is that He always gives us more than what we deserve. In giving us more than we deserve, what He gives us is Himself.

Exodus 16:1-4

The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Eli and Sinai on the fifteen day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow My instructions.”

When the Israelites grumbled against God and His anointed leadership, God did not destroy them or even punish them. He provided what they needed: bread.

God fed His people with bread from heaven. The act of grace was magnified by the fact that God’s people were filled with complaints against God and blaming the leadership that God had provided and He had appointed. They foolishly longed for the days of slavery in Egypt, where they remembered eating pots of meat and all the food they wanted. But they forgot that they lived in slavery.

Now they feared they would stave to death in the wilderness. They were only recently removed from God miraculously delivering them at the Red Sea. This same people who sang and danced to this great victory that God had won now blamed God and mourned their seemingly dire circumstances.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is trusting God in the midst of confusing circumstances.

God now faithfully feeds His faithless children. God’s motive for providing this food is clear – He wanted His people to see His provision for them and to see His power and remember that He was working on their behalf. Each day, they awakened to fresh evidence of God’s gracious generosity.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is looking to and trusting God for our daily provision.

This blessing was personal. It was not just to the nation as a whole but to each person and family in the nation.

Just as Jesus didn’t die for humanity as a whole but for each of us as individuals.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the gracious provision of God individually.

Jesus compared His mission on earth to the providing of the heavenly bread called manna. After demonstrating His miraculous power by feeding 5,000 on a hillside and walking on water, Jesus describes Himself as the Bread of Life in John 6:35.

Those who know Jesus discover a source of spiritual nourishment far greater than any physical food can provide. Jesus satisfies the cravings of all those longing for a source of satisfaction in life and hope in the life to come.

Like manna in the wilderness, Jesus provides food for the hungry soul. His provision is sufficient to meet the needs of all those who, by faith, feast on Him. In John 6:53-54 Jesus uses very shocking imagery to communicate the truth that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood will have eternal life. Many, upon hearing these words, turned back and no longer followed Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Removing the Walls is trusting in the life and death of Jesus to save us.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus would show the significance of His words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He would break a loaf of bread in the upper room with the Twelve. He would say that this broken loaf of bread represented His body that would soon be broken for our sin.

Jesus told His disciples that every time they ate this broken bread they were to remember His body given for their sin.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the grace of God through Jesus as our atoning sacrifice. 

In John 6:35 Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life.”

Jesus is what brings real satisfaction into our lives.

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is finding our true satisfaction in feasting on Jesus and His Word.

The world is looking to many things to bring satisfaction and none of those things will be lasting satisfaction. The things other than Jesus that we look to bring satisfaction will disappoint us and leave us empty. Jesus will fill us and satisfy us and never leave us empty.

With Jesus as the Bread of Life, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                 Joe