The Lord is the Bread of Life for us to Eat and Digest to be Constituted with Him

The primary purpose for which the Lord Jesus came down out of heaven to the earth was to give Himself to us as food, the bread of life, for us to eat Him as our spiritual nourishment and digest Him to become our constitution. Hallelujah!

This week in our morning revival we come to John 6 and the wonderful nugget we see in this chapter, The Bread of Life.

Today we need to be those who experience, enjoy, and express Christ.

We need to consider our actual situation not in the way of introspection or self-analysis but to be before the Lord and see where are we in reality in relation to experiencing, enjoying, and expressing Christ.

How much do we enjoy Christ? How much do we experience Christ? How much do we express Christ?

We may know much about the Lord, and the ministry may be so much constituted into our being; but how much do we live in the jubilee day by day, enjoying, experiencing, and expressing Christ?

When we live in the jubilee, we have no worry or anxiety, no concern or care, no shortage or lack, and no sickness, calamity, or problems.

In the jubilee, we enjoy all the benefits, for Christ Himself is our jubilee, and all other things are pleasant and satisfying to our heart.

When we live in the jubilee, we are at ease, excited, and exultant, and Christ is our real jubilee.

However, in our daily living, how much do we live in the reality of the jubilee?

When something happens and we simply react to it, are we in the jubilee? We lack so much in our experience.

This week as we come to the matter of the bread of life, we may think that we know this, for it is something we have been talking about for a long time, and we know that Christ is the bread of life. Oh, Lord Jesus!

May the Lord have a way to speak to us in a fresh way day by day so that we may take Him as our daily bread, even as the bread of life, in a fresh, new, and living way.

In chapter 6 of John, the Lord Jesus said again and again that He is the bread of life, the living bread, the bread of God, and the bread which came down out of heaven.

What do we do with bread? Do we just admire it and look at it? No, we eat the bread.

The Lord Jesus is the bread of life for us to eat. This is how we can live Christ: by eating Him.

We eat the Lord as the bread of life and we live because of Him.

What God wants from us not that we try harder to please Him and do what the Lord Jesus told us to do, neither does He want us to do more works for Him outwardly.

He wants us to eat Christ as the bread of life so that we may live because of what we eat of Him and has been digested and assimilated into our inner being. Amen!

The Lord is the Bread of Life given to us to Eat – His Words are Spirit and Life, and we Eat Him by Eating His Word

If we read John chapter 6 carefully, we will have a deep impression of this chapter, for we will see that the Lord is the bread of life given to us to eat.

We can say that there are seven crucial points in this chapter referring to Christ as the bread of life.

First, the Lord is the bread of life (John 6:35, 48), He gives His bread of life for us to eat (v. 51), He gives His blood for us to drink (v. 53), He not only died but also resurrected (v. 56), He lives in us and we live because of Him (v. 57), His Spirit and not His physical flesh gives us life and life supply (v. 63), and His words are spirit and life (v. 63).

Christ comes to us not as a doctrine but as the bread of life; the Lord is the bread of life not for our doctrinal study but as our food.

God is not primarily for theological study and doctrinal understanding; God was embodied in Christ to come to us as the bread of life for us to eat.

The Lord gives His bread of life for us to eat (v. 51).

The bread of life refers to His flesh; He gives His flesh to eat.

When the Jews at that time heard this, even when some of the disciples heard it, they were bothered by this idea of eating His flesh, and some of the disciples left Him.

But the flesh profits nothing – the words Christ speaks to us are spirit and are life. The Lord gives us also his blood for us to drink (v. 53).

The fact that there’s a separation between the flesh and the blood indicates the Lord’s death; He was slain, and He gave His life for the life of the world.

He didn’t only die but also was resurrected (v. 56). Death could not hold Him; He rose from the dead because His desire was to abide in us and that we could abide in Him.

If we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we abide in Him and He abides in us. The mutual abiding is possible only by eating the Lord.

To eat something is to take it and ingest it; something that is outside of us comes into us by our mastication and ingurgitation to be digested and assimilated into our being.

Because Christ became the Spirit in His resurrection, He can come into us.

Because Christ lives in us, we live because of Him and live before Him (v. 57).

Now as the living Father sent Him and He lived because of the Father, so we who eat Him shall live because of Him. Amen!

For us to live the Christian life, we need to eat the Lord. It’s not a matter of behaviour or self-improvement; the Christian life is not a matter of correction and bettering ourselves but a matter of eating Jesus.

His Spirit, not His physical flesh, gives us life and the life supply (v. 63).

The Spirit today is in the Lord’s spoken words; when we come to His word and exercise our spirit to receive His word, His words become spirit and life to us.

Christ went through a process of incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, not only to accomplish the work of redemption but even more, to become the life-giving Spirit and be embodied in His words for us to eat.

Now today the Lord is the bread of life, and we need to eat Him.

The last Adam – Christ in the flesh – became a life-giving Spirit, and as the Spirit He is embodied in His words for us to eat Him.

As we eat Him, we are enabled to live the Christian life, even to live because of Him, for we live by what we eat.

May we be like Jeremiah in Jer. 15:16, finding the Lord’s words and eating them so that we may be filled with Him and live because of Him.

May we have a fresh appreciation for the Lord’s words and come to Him day by day in His word to eat Him.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to us as the bread of life for us to eat today! Hallelujah, the Lord is the bread of life and we can eat Him today! Amen, Lord, thank You for giving us Your bread of life for us to eat and Your blood for us to drink. Thank You for going through death and resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit for us to receive and enjoy. Hallelujah, now Christ lives in us as teh Spirit, and we live because of Him and live before God! Amen, Lord, we come to You to eat You and live because of You today. Thank You for giving Your flesh for us to eat, and now we can partake of the Spirit in Your word as our life and life supply. Amen, Lord Jesus, thank You for being embodied in Your word as the Spirit who gives life; we come to Your word to eat You! Hallelujah, the Lord as the bread of life is in the word of God for us to eat, digest, and assimilate so that we may live because of Him and live Him out for God’s expression!

Christ came to Give Himself to us as Food, the Bread of Life, for us to Eat and Digest to be Constituted with Him

If we are open to the Lord and unveiled before Him as we read chapter 6 of the gospel of John, our concept concerning Christ will be revolutionized.

This chapter shows us that the primary purpose for which the Lord Jesus came down out of heaven to the earth was to accomplish one central matter – to give Himself to us as food, as the bread of life. Wow!

John 6:50-51 in particular shows us that the Lord is the bread of life so that He could be eaten by us as spiritual nourishment and be digested by us to become our constitution.

On the one hand, He is the bread of life for us to eat; on the other hand, He needs to be digested and assimilated into our organic constitution.

Why did the Lord come down from heaven to the earth? He didn’t come just to redeem us, even though this was part of what He came down.

He came down through incarnation so that He may be the bread of life for us to eat.

The Lord is the bread of life for us to eat, digest, and assimilate so that we may live because of Him.

This is not a shallow word; rather, this is very profound.

What God wants is not that we come to Him to prostrate ourselves before Him and offer Him sacrifices; He wants us to receive Him and take Him in as life.

When He came, He didn’t come as a king or an archangel; rather, He came as a man, and He said He is the bread of life. This is truly amazing!

The Lord’s work on the earth is for Him to be eaten by man to be man’s life.

On one hand, Christ was incarnated and did many things on the earth to do God’s will and accomplish His plan.

On the other hand, Christ came to the earth to accomplish one central matter: to give Himself to man as food so that He can be eaten by man as spiritual nourishment to become man’s constitution. Amen!

God ordained, even before the foundation of the world, that our destiny would be to daily eat the Lord.

This is why we see the tree of life in Genesis at the beginning and in Revelation at the end; our destiny and future is to continually eat the Lord.

We as Christians must eat the Lord. We are Christians who eat the Lord.

What kind of Christian are you? Are you a Christian who tries his best to do this or that for the Lord, striving to imitate Christ, and living according to the standard of morality he knows is best?

We should be Christians who eat the Lord. Our church life should be a life of eating the Lord.

We are Christians who eat the Lord.

Today the Lord is recovering us from focusing on outwad things to focusing on eating the Lord.

We should not take the matter of eating in a superficial way; rather, we need to daily practice eating the Lord as the bread of life.

As we eat the Lord, something happens in our being; we digest Him and assimilate Him, and He becomes part of our inner being, even our constitution.

We need to eat, digest, and assimilate Christ as the bread of life.

We may go to meetings, join conferences, or even go to the full-time training for two years; all these are very good, but in our daily living we need to practice eating the Lord as the bread of life.

Without eating Christ as the bread of life, we cannot live Christ nor can we live because of Christ.

We need to develop the practice of spending time with the Lord.

We need to deal with the Lord concerning His word, allowing Him to infuse us with what He is and work Himself into us.

He wants us to enjoy Him as the bread of life day by day so that we may be filled with His life, grow in His life, and express His life.

When we digest and assimilate Christ into our inner being, He becomes our very constitution, and we express Him in our daily living.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to us not as a king or as an archangel but as the bread of life for us to eat, digest, and assimilate. Hallelujah, God became a man so that He may become our spiritual food for us to eat and digest to be constituted with Him! Amen, Lord, change our concept concerning our relationship with You. May we stop our doing, our striving, and our struggling to please You, and simply come to enjoy You. May we see that the primary purpose the Lord Jesus came down out of heaven to the earth was to give Himself to us as food, as the bread of life! Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with this central matter by eating You as the bread of life. We take You as our spiritual nourishment. We want to digest You and assimilate You in our inner being so that You can become our constitution today. Amen, Lord Jesus, keep us eating You today! We take You as the bread of life. We want to eat You in Your word. Keep us eating You day by day!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ray Mulligan in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1959, vol. 1 pp. 229-243, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (2024 July Semiannual Training), week 7, The Bread of Life.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Life’s feeding – the need of the hungry, Nuggets and Gems from the Bible – a PDF from LSM.
  – The bread of life, a portion from, The Divine Economy, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee.
  – Believing into Christ (1), via, Living to Him.
  – A Christian’s Attitude toward Government and Politics, via, Shepherding Words.
  – God Wants to Change Your Diet, via, Holding to Truth in love.
  – Jesus our Bread of Life; Eat by Receiving His Words, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – He is the bread of life, a portion from, The Normal Christian Faith, Chapter 5, by Watchman Nee.
  – Enjoying Christ as My Portion, via, The Church in Anaheim.
  – What is the testimony of the Scriptures concerning God as our food? More via, The Hearing of Faith.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Thou art the Bread of Life, / O Lord, to me, / Thy holy Word the truth / That saveth me; / Give me to eat and live / With Thee above; / Teach me to love Thy truth, / For Thou art Love. (Hymns #806 stanza 2)
  – We are feeding on the living bread, / Eating of the feast our Lord has spread, / And whoso eateth, Jesus said, / Shall hunger nevermore. / What, hunger nevermore? Yes, hunger nevermore! / What, hunger nevermore? Yes, hunger nevermore! / And whoso eateth, Jesus said, / Shall hunger nevermore. (Hymns #1150 stanza 2)
  – Christ Jesus is the food we eat; / He is our bread, He is our meat; / He is our life-supply complete; / We daily eat of Him. / We daily eat of Him, / We daily eat of Him. / He is our life-supply complete; / We daily eat of Him. (Hymns #1145 stanza 3)