God cares more for what we are than for what we can do for Him; thus, God cares very much for what we eat because what we eat determines what we live by and what we become.
When God created Adam, He didn’t give him a to-do list but put him in front of the tree of life, warning him concerning eating from the wrong tree. After God delivered His people Israel from Egypt, He led them in the wilderness and completely changed their diet: He fed them with heavenly food, the manna which daily came down from heaven.
For forty years the people of Israel ate only manna; during this time, their inward constitution was changed, and they were qualified to build up and become God’s dwelling place on earth. The people of Israel were positionally no longer in Egypt after crossing the Red Sea, but the Egyptian constitution was still in them; thus, they desired and yearned after the Egyptian food.
In the church life we may not be in the world when we meet with the saints and enjoy the Lord, but inwardly our constitution may still be worldly because we still yearn for and desire things in the world. The “Egyptian diet” is all the things that we desire to feed on in order to find satisfaction; whatever we desire, hunger, and thirst after is the diet according to which our being has been constituted.
Physically and humanly, some people desire to eat Chinese food all the time because this is their constitution. Spiritually speaking, many believers still desire to eat other things besides Christ; for this reason, the Lord wants to cut off our worldly diet and limit us to a diet of heavenly food, which is Christ Himself as the real manna, the bread of life.
The Lord wants not only to transfer us out of the authority of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in the church, but He wants to change our nature and constitution inwardly by working Himself into us as our food. For this, we need to exercise our spirit and cooperate with the Lord to have a change of diet and a change of appetite.
We need to stay under the ministry of the new covenant, the ministry of life, which conveys Christ to us as our unique food to reconstitute us and make us heavenly people, those qualified to build God’s house.
Eating Nothing but Christ to be Reconstituted with Christ and be Qualified to Build up the Church
The tabernacle could not be built up by the Egyptians – it had to be built up by the people of God who were qualified to build up the tabernacle. God brought His people into the wilderness and gave them only one thing to eat: manna; this manna reconstituted them inwardly, made them God’s heavenly people, and qualified them to build and become God’s dwelling place on earth.
The church cannot be built up by worldly people; God’s intention in His salvation is to work Himself into His believers and change their constitution by feeding them with Christ as their unique heavenly food, thereby qualifying them to build up the church as God’s dwelling place and become God’s dwelling place (see 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; Rev. 21:2-3).
In our Christian life we have nothing to eat except Christ: He is the bread of life as the reality of the heavenly manna, coming to us to be our daily life-supply. When we eat Christ as the heavenly manna, paying the price daily to enjoy Him in His word, there is a metabolic process taking place in us: our old element is being discharged, and the element of God is added to our being.
As we eat Christ daily, in nature and constitution we are becoming the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead. God doesn’t want us to “do things for Him” or even to “build His house” – unless we first are the right persons to do so.
The only way we are qualified to build up the church as the Body of Christ, God’s dwelling place on earth, is by being inwardly reconstituted with Christ. When we feed on Christ as the real manna, our constitution is re-arranged so that the church as the dwelling place of God may be built up (Matt. 16:18).
On the one hand, the heavenly manna nourishes us and heals us, and on the other, it eliminates the negative things in us. We don’t really know what is in our inward constitution, but when we eat Christ as the heavenly manna, we are being slowly reconstituted and replaced by the element of Christ to become heavenly people, those qualified to build up the church.
By feeding on Christ we become Christ; may the Lord change our diet so that we may be reconstituted with Christ and become God’s dwelling place! May we really see that God gives us to eat nothing but Christ: Christ is our bread, the real manna, and we need to eat Him and be reconstituted with Him!
God daily sends Christ as the bread of life so that we would eat Him in His word and be changed in our constitution by being fed with the heavenly food. The more we eat Christ, the more we build up the church; the more we feed on Christ only, the more we are qualified to build up the church and we are built up as the church with all the saints.
Lord Jesus, cause us to realize that Your intention in Your salvation is to work Yourself into us so that You may change our inward constitution by feeding us with heavenly food! Lord, we give ourselves to daily eat You as the heavenly manna so that we may be reconstituted with You and become God’s heavenly people, those qualified to build up God’s habitation on the earth today. Take away our desire and hunger for anything other than Christ, and give us an appetite for Christ as our daily food supply!
Being those who Desire, Hunger, and Thirst after Christ as our Only Food
In Num. 11:5-6 the people of Israel murmured against Moses saying that they got sick and tired of manna – every day they had manna and only manna to eat; they yearned to eat the garlic and onions and leaks as they used to in Egypt…The people of Israel abhorred the heavenly taste of manna and lusted for the worldly taste of the Egyptian food.
How does this apply to us in our Christian life? The “Egyptian diet” denotes all the things that we desire to feed in order to find satisfaction; we may feed on sports, entertainment, TV, music, cars, gadgets, games, etc. Whatever we desire, hunger, and thirst after is the diet according to which our being has been constituted.
What are we constituted with? It is the things that we desire and hunger for. Why do we still desire some aspects of the world? It is because we are constituted with them. Why do we still desire, thirst, and hunger after things other than Christ? Because our being has been constituted with something other than Christ. What we have been constituted with is what we desire to feed on.
The way God deals with the flesh as we follow Him is by “starving the flesh” and feeding our spirit; He gives us Christ as manna daily, and this spiritual food is not pleasing to the flesh. Our flesh likes to feed on things of the world, but the Lord gives us only Christ as our daily food; the more we feed on Christ, the more our flesh is starved and dealt with, and the more we grow in life to build up the Body of Christ.
We all need a change of appetite: we need to recognize what is real food and work not for the food which perishes but for the food which abides unto eternal life (John 6:27). Our food is not merely physical; whatever we take into us for our satisfaction is our food; only Christ Himself is the food that doesn’t perish, and we need to eat Him day by day.
Whatever satisfies, strengthens, and sustains us is our food; we need to feed on Christ and take Him in as manna so that He may be our sustenance, our strength, and our satisfaction daily.
On His side, God is faithful to cut off the worldly diet and limit us to a diet of heavenly food – which is Christ; on our side, we need to daily come to the Lord in His word and eat Him by praying over His word and thus taking Him in. We all need to be able to say as the Psalmist did, Whom do I have in heaven but You? And besides You there is nothing I desire on earth. (Psa. 73:25) We all need to be those who testify to others,
The Lord is the only One who satisfies me. Apart from Him, I have no satisfaction. I am daily strengthened and sustained by Christ. He is the only food on which I rely!
This doesn’t mean that we physically cut ourselves from the world but that, no matter what we do, read, speak, or are involved in, we take only Christ as our sustenance, our strength, and our satisfaction. We need to stay in the unique ministry in the New Testament, the ministry which conveys Christ as the unique food for God’s people (see Acts 1:17, 25; 2 Cor. 4:1; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2 Cor. 3:6).
Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with You to have our diet changed to Christ and to have our appetite changed to enjoying Christ and eating only Christ. Lord, You are the real food that satisfies us, sustains us, and strengthens us. Only You satisfy us, only You sustain us, and only You strengthen us. Lord Jesus, apart from You, we have no satisfaction. Keep us enjoying You and taking You in as the daily food supply, the heavenly manna, until we are fully reconstituted with You to be Your heavenly people building up and becoming Your dwelling place on earth, the church as the Body of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 32 and 34, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 9 / msg 9, The Change of Diet to the Heavenly Christ as the Unique Food for God’s People.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Our flesh, which is with us the rest of our lives / Needs to be dealt with, exposed, recognized. / It’s only by eating our Christ every day; / A little each morning, oh this is God’s way! (Song on Eating Christ to Deal with the Flesh)
# Eating is man’s destiny / And the Lord’s recovery; / This defeats the enemy— / Overcome! / Come enjoy the tree of life, / Leave the doctrines, leave the strife! / Overcome by eating Christ— / Overcome! (Hymns #1273)
# Lord, Thou art manna true, / Descended from on high, / Who came to be my food, / To fully satisfy. / If I could not partake, / How empty I would be; / My source of daily strength / Is eating, drinking Thee. (Song on Christ as the Manna)
Manna produces a metabolic change in which the Egyptian element is replaced by the heavenly element….In name, the children of Israel were not Egyptians. But in nature and in composition they did not differ from the Egyptians in the least. By giving the people manna God seemed to be saying, “I have rescued you from Egypt positionally, but you have not yet been changed dispositionally. Now I shall change your constitution by changing your diet from an Egyptian diet to a heavenly diet. In this way I shall change your nature and your being, and I shall constitute you into a peculiar people. Because I want you to be heavenly, I shall not feed you with anything which has its source in the earth. Day by day, I shall send heavenly food, food from My dwelling place in heaven. This food will change your constitution.” May we all see that God’s intention in His salvation is to work Himself into us and to change our constitution by feeding us with heavenly food. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 32)
We must take the Lord and eat the heavenly manna as our food that God supplies abundantly and set aside the intention of earthly things..