TRUE BREAD

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

So they asked Him, “What sign then will You give that we may see it and believe You? What will You do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

John 6:30-33

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After Jesus had miraculously fed them with just five barley loaves and two small fish, a large crowd from the 5,000 navigated the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum in search of Jesus who had gone there with His disciples. In yesterday’s devotion, we saw where the crown greeted Jesus by asking Him how long He and his followers had been in Capernaum. But Jesus, able to know the most inner thoughts and intentions of people, knew the people were really just there so He might miraculously feed Him again, a motive that opened up the opportunity for Jesus to bring the Gospel their way.

Do you remember what He said?

Let’s recap for a moment.

“Very truly I tell you, you are looking for Me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on Him God the Father has placed His seal of approval.” John 6:26-27

The crowd of people who had come to Capernaum was looking for tangible food much like one might grow or make themselves or purchase in the marketplace. But Jesus wanted to offer them so much more. For He had not just come to perform amazing works, caring for and meeting the needs of the people He encountered. He had come to bring them to a life that would last forever, “food” that would never spoil.  

Only Jesus could bring this to them because only Jesus had been given the seal of approval from God.

Well, the people’s interests were piqued by what Jesus had to say, so much so that they asked a simple question:

“What must we do to do the works God requires?” John 6:28

In other words, Jesus said they had to work to get the food that endures to eternal life. The people wanted to know what work was needed to be done and as we see Jesus’ response, the people would hear that the labor required would be easier than they could ever imagine.

“The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.” John 6:29

That was all that was required.

Just believe in Jesus and one could earn the “food” that would never perish. Jesus had put it a different way earlier in His ministry:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Again, all anyone had to do to find salvation is place their belief in Jesus, the One God sent to be the Savior of the world. You would have thought this would have been easy enough to grasp by the crowd who had tracked Jesus down. But as we see in today’s passage as we continue to look at this encounter, the people Jesus had fed so incredibly were not quite buying into the ease of what Jesus was telling them to do. Look again at our scripture for today:

So they asked Him, “What sign then will You give that we may see it and believe You? What will You do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” John 6:30-33

Here we see that the crowd is made up of Jews because they make the first mention of their Israelite ancestors, those who had made the exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses. The people addressing Jesus remembered how God had provided for their Jewish predecessors, sending them manna (quail too) from the heavens when the threat of starvation lingered. God had given food by providing a sign and they wondered what sign Jesus might be giving them about the “food” He was talking about.

Again, we find Him trying to provide clarification:

“Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Here, Jesus tries to differentiate once again between the physical bread the people were talking about and the “bread” that He was, the “true bread” God the Father had given them to give life to the world, and not just any life, but life everlasting.

In the end translation, Jesus is the true bread of God and as we will see in tomorrow’s devotion, the Bread of life.

Have you believed in Him today?

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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