From Praying the Names of Jesus Week Four, Day Five
The Name
Without bread no one in ancient Palestine would have survived for long. So it seems entirely reasonable for Jesus, in what has become known as the Lord's Prayer, to instruct his disciples to pray for their daily bread. Yet the Lord also challenged his followers not to work for food that spoils, announcing himself as the only food that would enable them to live forever.
In fact, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means "house of bread." After feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, he shocked his listeners by declaring: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). This week, as you seek to understand what it means that Jesus is the Bread of Life, ask him to show you exactly what it means to feed on him.
Key Scripture
"I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." John 6:48 - 51
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Friday
Promises Associated with His Name
Imagine a scene in which all the people who have ever lived are standing one in front of the other. Then death enters the picture, snapping its steely cold fingers against the first person in line. One by one everybody collapses, like a long line of dominoes. The process goes on for centuries until one of the dominoes does the impossible — it stands back up again. Suddenly death's power has been challenged, disrupted, called into question.
That's what happened when Jesus was killed. Though death pressed down on him, it could not obliterate his life. As Peter assured his fellow Jews: "God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him" (Acts 2:24).
Jesus, the greatest of all death's trophies, did what no human being had ever done before. He gave death the slip. And now he leads a revolt against sin and death, promising that the same divine power that raised him from the dead will raise us up as long as we have fed on him, the Living Bread come down from heaven.
Promises in Scripture
Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:35
"I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." John 6:48 - 51
Continued Prayer and Praise
Refuse to spend so much money on things that will never satisfy your hunger. (Isaiah 55:1 - 2)
Reflect on Jesus' words at the Last Supper. (Luke 22:7 - 22)
Remember the promise of hidden manna. (Revelation 2:17)
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Meet your spiritual ancestors as they really were: Less Than Perfect: Broken Men and Women of the Bible and What We Can Learn from Them.