We need to Continually Eat Christ as the Bread of Life to Live Because of Him Daily

As believers in Christ, we need to continually eat Christ as the bread of life so that we may live because of Him daily.

In John 6 we see a detailed discourse on the Lord Jesus being the bread of life; several times He said He is the bread of life, the living bread, the true bread, even the bread which came down out of heaven, and we need to eat Christ as the bread of life day by day. Amen!

Many Christians have the concept that Christ is their Savior and their Lord, which is not wrong, but they do not know that Christ is their food.

If we read this particular chapter in the Gospel of John we will see how the Lord drives home this one specific matter: He is the bread of life.

He came for us to have life, and we can receive Him as life by eating Him.

The Lord Jesus went through a process in order to become edible; He wants man not only to be redeemed and saved but even more, to partake of Him as the bread of life every day.

On His side, He has done everything: He became the bread of life, and He is ready to impart Himself as life into us day by day, even moment by moment.

But the problem is many times on our side; so many times we do not eat the Lord, and we may not have a hunger for Him.

We may hunger for many things in the world but not for Christ.

And if we eat Christ, we eat so sporadically that we do not get sufficient nourishment into our spiritual being.

Just as humanly we may eat here and there, being stressed and doing many things, and this is not good for our health, so spiritually we may eat here and there, when we remember or when we feel like it, and this is not healthy for our spiritual health.

May we realize that the entire Bible is a book of life, even a book for us to eat and enjoy.

Christ as the tree of life presented Himself to us as life from Genesis to Revelation, and when He was incarnated, He said again and again that He is the bread of life for us to eat.

He said He gives His flesh for our food and His blood for our drink.

At the same time He said that blood and flesh profit nothing, for it is the Spirit who gives life, and the words He speaks to us are spirit and are life (John 6:63).

We may wonder how we can eat the Lord Jesus, how we can eat His flesh and drink His blood; the answer is simple: we can eat Him in the Word, for the word of the Lord Jesus contains Him.

Our eating is very important; if we eat the Lord, we can live because of Him, but if we do not eat the Lord, we still live in the self, in the flesh, and in the natural man, and we are just like the others in the world.

When we eat Christ today, when we habitually take time to eat the Lord, we can grow in life, we can live because of what we eat, and we can express Christ.

Christ is the Bread of Life for us to Eat, Enjoy, and Experience Daily and Continually

Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John is a detailed discourse of the Lord Jesus being the bread of life; He declared, I am the bread of life (v. 48).

Many verses in this chapter reveal that Christ is the bread of life for our experience and enjoyment (see vv. 27, 32-35, 47-58, 63a, 68).

If we read this chapter, even though it speaks of this and that thing, and the Lord deals with this or that problem, the main point is that Christ is our food, the bread of life (vv. 35, 48).

We need to realize that Christ is our food; Christ is the bread of life for us to eat, enjoy, and experience.

When we speak of eating, we need to realize that this is not a once-for-all matter; we don’t eat Christ once and that’s it.

Rather, we need to eat Christ as the bread of life daily, for He is edible (v. 50).

For us as believers in Christ to know God and live a life for the fulfillment of God’s purpose, we need to eat Christ as the bread of life.

For us to go on with the Lord and remain in the church life, being kept in the center of the fulfilment of God’s economy, we need to eat Christ as the bread of life.

When we consider this matter we realize how much time we have wasted.

We spend so much time doing this or that, watching this or that, or going here or there, but we don’t spend adequate time eating Christ as the bread of life.

We need to repent before the Lord for the time we wasted and learn to redeem the time.

The days are evil, so we need to redeem the time to eat Christ as the bread of life.

We need to come to the Lord in His word and eat Him, partake of Him as life, and be nourished with Him.

The Lord Jesus as the word of God, as the bread of life, and as the bread which came down out of heaven, is embodied in His word; we need to eat, digest, and assimilate Him.

We need to daily exercise our spirit to feed on Christ so that we may receive Him, digest Him, enjoy Him, and apply Him moment by moment (vv. 56-57).

The way to eat Christ as the bread of life is to exercise our spirit as we come to the Lord in His word.

On the one hand, Christ today is the Spirit, always available and receivable; on the other hand, the Spirit can be abstract, but He is embodied in the Word.

When we come to the Word of God and exercise our spirit to contact the Lord, we eat Christ as the bread of life.

We need to not only read the Bible sequentially and according to a schedule, even in a habitual way, but even more, we need to exercise our spirit as we come to the Lord’s word.

We need to read the Bible in the way of enjoying Christ as our food.

May we all concentrate on this one thing: eating Christ and then living by what we have eaten of Him (v. 54)!

When we eat Christ, we partake of Him as our food, and enjoy Him as the bread of life, we are inwardly nourished and we can live Christ, that is, we can live because of what we have eaten.

May we focus on this one matter: eating Christ as the bread of life and living by the Christ we eat, digest, and assimilate.

The adequate eating of the Lord will have an impact on the way we live.

We cannot say that we eat Christ, and yet live just like the other people around us, having no regard for God and His purpose.

Rather, if we find the Lord’s words and eat them, if we spend time with the Lord daily and eat His word, we will be inwardly strengthened and nourished so that we may live because of Christ, that is, to live Christ.

Thank the Lord that He is edible! He is the bread of life, our real food!

May we exercise our spirit to call on the name of the Lord and eat Him in His word! And may we apply Him daily, even moment by moment, in our daily living!

May we forget about everything else and just focus on eating Christ!

May we forget about our doing and our working and simply learn to eat Christ as the bread of life and then live by what we have eaten of Him. This is the divine way of life for our daily living.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to us as the bread of life for us to eat today. We exercise our spirit as we come to the Word of God to contact God and eat Christ as the bread of life. Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to forget about other things and focus on this one thing: eating Christ and living by the Christ we eat! We forget about our doing and our working and we simply want to learn to eat Christ as the bread of life! Amen, Lord, we take You in as our food. We take You in as the bread of life. Give life to our inner being. Add more of Yourself to us. We want to receive You into us, digest You, experience You, and apply You moment by moment. May the Christ we eat become so real to us inwardly and be lived out of us outwardly. Thank You, dear Lord, for this divine way of life for our daily living: eating Christ as the bread of life and living because of the Christ we have enjoyed! Amen, we want to concentrate on this one thing: eating Christ and living because of the Christ we eat and enjoy!

Develop a Taste for Christ and Eat Christ as the Bread of Life to Live because of Him

John 6:27 says, Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

We spend so much time working and laboring on things related to the food which perishes.

We put a lot of energy and time into advancing in our jobs, taking care of our business, and taking care of our family.

We need to do all these things, but as believers in Christ we are called into a different kind of enterprise: to express Christ by eating Him as the bread of life.

We are here not merely to take care of our needs or have a good business and stellar career; we are here to express God by eating Christ as the bread of life and living because of Him.

Eternal life is the divine life, the uncreated life of God, which is not only everlasting with respect to time but also is eternal and divine in nature (John 3:15).

When we eat Christ as the bread of life, we are supplied with the eternal life and we can live because of Him; the food which abides unto eternal life can supply us and bring us into eternal life (6:27).

Thank the Lord, the Father gives us the true bread out of heaven, for Christ is the bread of God coming down out of heaven and giving life to the world (vv. 32-33).

He is the true bread, the true food. There are other foods besides Him, but all are the bad kinds of food, things which are not healthy for us to eat.

As we go on with the Lord today and live in this modern age, we need to see that Satan is interested in causing us to sin and also in damaging our diet.

He wants us to eat many negative things, even to give us a taste for evil things. We develop a taste for something by spending time with it.

Satan has a strategy of luring us into things and causing us to spend time with certain things, and slowly our taste changes: we start to like certain evil things or certain things in the world. Oh, Lord Jesus!

May we learn to develop a taste for Christ, a taste for the bread of life, by spending time with the Lord day by day!

We are here not for doctrines, regulations, or mere practices – we are here for life, for the tree of life!

The enemy knows it, so he is subtle; he wants to affect our taste, for our taste drives us to eat the things we eat.

Certain people automatically choose Chinese food when they need to eat something, while others gravitate toward the food they like to eat.

What are we eating? What do we eat spiritually, and what do we feed on in our daily life?

The things we spend time with have an influence on the kind of diet we have.

The things we linger in, watch, scroll through, and are engaged in develop in us a taste for those things, and this changes our diet.

Sadly, we have a taste for so many things that are different from the heavenly things. Oh, Lord.

The Lord is looking to affect and impact our taste so that we love the bread of life and the heavenly things.

Only spiritual things are real, for the Spirit is the reality (1 John 5:6).

As the true bread, Christ is the bread of truth, of reality; Christ is true, real, and we can eat Christ as the bread of life in His word to be filled with reality and to be made real.

We all need to be deeply impressed with the fact that we need Christ as the true bread of life sent by God to bring us eternal life.

May the Lord impress us deeply with this matter.

We may know He’s the bread of life, but does this affect our daily living?

Do we feed on the Lord day by day, and do we have a taste for the Lord as the bread of life?

The bread of God in John 6:33 is the true bread in v. 32.

As the bread that came down out of heaven, Christ is the heavenly bread, and as the bread of God, He is of God, He was sent by God, and He was with God.

Christ is the bread of God, the bread of life, and the true bread; furthermore, He is the heavenly bread and the living bread.

When we eat Christ as the bread of life and digest it, it becomes our constitution, and we are joined and mingled with the Lord as one (1 Cor. 6:17).

Amen, may we practice this in our daily life. May we build up a habit of eating the Lord as the bread of life day by day, even many times during the day.

Anyone who eats the living bread which came down out of heaven will live forever (John 6:50-51).

We want to be such ones, those who eat the Lord as the living bread day by day to live because of Him.

Lord Jesus, we want to learn to eat Christ as the bread of life day by day. Oh Lord, we give ourselves to You. We give You our taste and our preference in eating. Save us from eating things that are evil and unhealthy for us spiritually. We want to develop a taste for eating the bread of life day by day. Keep us from the enemy’s snare to change our taste. May we have a taste for life and may we not allow anything to change our taste. Oh Lord, You are so sweet! You are our bread of life and we love to eat You by exercising our spirit in coming to Your Word. We want to eat You as the true food, the real bread of God. We want to partake of You as the bread of truth, of reality, for us to be filled with You as our reality. Oh Lord, we want to eat You as the bread of life and digest You so that You may become our constitution! May we eat Christ day by day and may we live because of Christ in our daily living! Amen, Lord, live in us today!

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, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 279, by Witness Lee, 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:
  – The Bible Is Our Spiritual Food, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Growing in life by eating Jesus, a portion from, The Flesh and the Spirit, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee.
  – The day-by-day Christian life, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – 6 Steps Jesus Took to Become Your Spiritual Food, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – What is the testimony of the Scriptures concerning God as our food? More via, Hearing of Faith.
  – 7 Compelling Reasons to Read the Bible, via, Bibles for Europe blog.
  – The bread of life, a portion from, The Divine Economy, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee.
  – The experience of the pneumatic Christ in the Gospel of John, article by Ron Kangas in, An Open Letter.
  – Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life”, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – 6 – The Ministry Produced through Revelation and Suffering, Part Two: Suffering (2), via, Sheperding Words.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Lord, Thou art the Bread from heaven, / The unleavened Bread of life; / Eating Thee, with Thee we mingle, / Ceasing from our sin and strife. / Lamb and Bread are both Thy figures, / Showing Thou art life to us; / Feasting on Thee at Thy table, / We enjoy Thy riches thus. (Hymns #196 stanza 3)
  – Just as we need the earthly food / Our body’s need to satisfy, / We need the food for spirit too— / Thyself, Thy Word, its true supply. / Thou art the Spirit, and Thy Word / Thy very Self expressed doth make; / Thus, it is Spirit as Thyself, / Which by our spirit we must take. (Hymns #814 stanzas 3-4)
  – As the living Father has sent Me / And I live because of the Father, / As the living Father has sent Me / And I live because of the Father, / So he who eats Me, eats Me, eats Me, / So he who eats Me, eats Me, eats Me, / He also shall live / Because of Me. (Scripture song)