We need to have a new beginning with the Lord every day to “gather the manna”, that is, to enjoy the Lord in a fresh and new way to feed on Him and be nourished with Him in His Word.
In the Old Testament – and actually in the entire Bible – the manna was the longest running miracle that God did for His people: He provided them with manna every day for forty years.
God’s desire is to dwell among His people, but for Him to be able to do that, He needs to have a group of people that would match Him in every possible way.
How can we as human beings match God and be His people so that He may dwell among us? It is only by God coming into us and being constituted into us to become the very fiber of our being so that we may be intrinsically remade and rearranged with God’s element that we can be the same as He is.
This is what is seen in the picture of manna, and this is what the Lord Jesus clearly told us in John 6: He has come to be the bread of life, the living bread, the bread that comes down from heaven so that we may eat, digest, assimilate, and be constituted with, so that God would be wrought into our being.
By feeding on Christ as the heavenly manna to be our food, we as God’s people become the same as Christ – we express what we eat, for He enters into us and becomes our constituting element.
By feeding on manna, God’s people eventually became manna; this shows that our inner constitution must be rearranged through the eating of Christ so that the church as the dwelling place of God may be built up.
For us to be part of God’s dwelling place, we need to have a change of diet; we need to give up eating “Egyptian food” in the world and eat the divine food, the heavenly diet, so that we may be reconstituted with Christ.
However, as it is with all diets, we may know we need it, we may even critically depend on our change of diet, but we need to also build up an appetite for such a diet.
We may not like to eat Christ and only Christ every day, but if we build up an appetite for eating Christ and enjoy Him, we will have Him as our unique diet and we will be reconstituted with Him.
We have to pray and ask the Lord to change our appetite; especially as we are involved with many things of this world, including work, travel, caring for our family, shopping, etc, we may feed on the things of the world, and we may even have a taste for entertainment, sports, news, and the internet.
Only the Lord knows what do we have an appetite for; what we take into us for our satisfaction is our food, and whatever satisfies, nourishes, strengthens, and sustains us is our food. Oh, may we be those who have a change of diet to a diet of Christ and an appetite of Christ to enjoy and eat Christ only!
Christ as our Heavenly Food is a Mystery and a Miracle, and we can Eat Him Early in the Morning
We need to see and experience the characteristics of Christ as our unique food, our daily manna, for our metabolic transformation.
Like the children of Israel, we are journeying through the wilderness in this age, and the Lord provides us with only one thing to it: manna, that is, the heavenly Christ as our unique food.
The first characteristic of manna is that it is a mystery; when the children of Israel saw it on the ground, they asked, What is it? (see Exo. 16:15). The Hebrew expression “man hu” from which the word manna derives, actually means, “What is it?”
Just as we cannot analyze or explain manna, so we cannot analyze or explain the Lord Jesus; we simply need to take Him in and enjoy Him every day.
To the people of the world, Christ is the real manna, the real, “What is it?”; when we eat Him, when we daily exercise our spirit to take Him in, we will become a mystery, just like Him.
Manna is a long-term miracle; it was sent every morning, and it had to be gathered every morning before the sun was up (Exo. 16:4, 21; cf. Matt. 6:34).
The children of Israel could not store manna until later that day or the next day, for it was spoiled; this indicates that we cannot store up the supply of Christ but that the experience of Christ as our life supply must be daily, morning by morning.
Day by day and morning by morning we need to wake up and “gather the manna” by exercising our spirit over the word of God to contact God and enjoy Christ to eat Him.
As our food, Christ will last for eternity; God provides Christ to be our food until eternity!
Manna is from heaven; on the one hand, the Lord Jesus is the “bread out of heaven”; on the other hand, He is “the bread of God”, the One who came down out of heaven to be our food (Exo. 16:4; John 6:32-33, 51).
Hallelujah, the heavenly Christ is our heavenly food for us earthly people may eat, digest, and assimilate so that we may be constituted with Him and live a heavenly life on earth!
Manna came with the dew; this signifies that Christ as our heavenly food comes with the Lord’s refreshing and watering grace brought in by His fresh compassions (Exo. 16:13-14; Num. 11:9; Psa. 133:3; Lam. 3:22-23; Heb. 4:16; Psa. 110:3).
Grace is God reaching us to refresh us and water us. We need to wake up a little earlier in the morning and contact the Lord to eat the heavenly food; what happens when we do this is that God’s grace reaches us, for the manna comes with the dew, so we enjoy the Lord’s sweet presence and His nourishing every morning.
Manna comes in the morning, indicating that it gives us a new beginning through our living contact with the Lord.
Manna is small – Christ was born in a manger, and He was raised in the home of a carpenter in a small and despised town; this indicates that the Lord – who came to be the heavenly food for His people – didn’t make a display of His greatness but preferred to be small in the eyes of man (Exo. 16:14b; Luke 2:12; John 6:35; cf. Judg. 9:9, 11, 13; Matt. 13:31-32).
When we eat Christ as the small One, the One small enough to eat, we will be preserved to be small; we will not want to do big or great things for the Lord but we will be OK to remain small as He was, humble and nourishing.
Lord Jesus, we want to see and experience the characteristics of Christ as our unique food, our daily manna, for our metabolic transformation. Draw us each morning to wake up earlier and gather the manna, enjoying a fresh supply of Christ as our daily heavenly food. Amen, Lord, day by day and morning by morning we want to contact You and eat You as our heavenly food. May we enjoy the Lord’s refreshing and watering grace brought in by His fresh compassions every morning. May we have a new beginning every morning as we exercise to eat Christ as the heavenly food, and may we preserved humble and small like You as we eat You as the One small enough to eat!
Having a New Beginning every Morning by Contacting the Lord in His word to Eat Him
God gave His people manna not once a month or once a year but once a day, every day, early in the morning; the children of Israel gathered it morning by morning (Exo. 16:21).
This means that the Lord gives us a new beginning every day; every day we can have a new beginning, a new turn, a new portion of Christ to enjoy.
If God would send manna yearly, we could not survive, and He would send it monthly, we would not be strengthened or sustained.
Praise the Lord, every morning we can have a new beginning, a new turn to Him; we can turn to Him and have a good spiritual breakfast by feeding on the Lord in a fresh way.
We may even eagerly await the next morning because we know we have a new beginning, we know that we will have a new feast with the Lord in the morning.
Every new beginning brings us fresh manna; if we expect to receive manna from the Lord, we need to open to the Lord and turn to Him again, desiring to have a new beginning with Him.
To have a fresh beginning with the Lord every morning we need to let go of the past, not live in the past, and come to the Lord as we are every morning in prayer to have a new start and experience Him as the dew and the manna.
If we want to relive the past, if we want to have the same kind of experience we had many years ago, manna will come to us; but whenever we are willing to have a new beginning and even take Christ as our new beginning every morning, we will eat the Lord as our new and fresh heavenly manna.
How we thank the Lord that every morning we can have a new beginning by eating the Lord as our new and fresh heavenly manna; every morning we can have a new start.
This is the Lord’s sovereignty and His economy. For us to go on with the Lord we need to have such new beginnings every morning; this means that we should not only read the words of the Bible but come to the Lord to contact Him as a living person.
We shouldn’t be occupied with doctrines or methods but desperately seek the Lord Himself; when we pursue the Lord in this way, we will have a new beginning with Him every morning.
We shouldn’t have a “set way”, a “custom” or a “tradition” of what we do in the morning with the Lord; it is good to read the Bible and pray, but we should not have a tradition but every day be new and fresh with the Lord.
It is possible for us to read the Word of God every morning yet not gather any manna, for we do not have a living contact with the Lord.
The Bible in itself doesn’t give us life; the printed words of the Bible don’t give us life unless we come to the Lord as we read it.
We may search the Scriptures to find the Lord, but unless we come to Him to contact this living One in spirit, we do not receive life (John 5:39-40). For us to receive and have life as we spend time with the Lord we need to turn to our spirit.
It is so easy to exercise our mind in the morning; it is easy to exercise our mind as we read the word of God, but what about exercising our spirit? For us to have a new beginning and receive a fresh supply of manna, we need to turn to our spirit.
May we build up a daily habit of contacting the Lord in His word before we become occupied with the affairs of the day. May we first of all contact the Lord each morning, coming to Him to feed on Him as the heavenly manna through the exercise of our spirit over the word of God.
Lord Jesus, we want a new beginning with You every morning; we do not want to remain the same as yesterday – we come to You to have a new beginning by contacting You in Your word daily. Amen, Lord, we are ready for a new turn; we don’t want to live the same way as in the past – we want to contact You in spirit so that we may be inwardly supplied with the divine life! Lord, we desperately seek You; we reject any custom or tradition, and we simply come to You to enjoy You, receive life, and feed on You!
This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Să avem un nou început în fiecare dimineață, prin contactul cu Domnul în Cuvântul Său pentru a-L mânca.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 36-37 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Numbers (2), week 3, The Change of our Diet to the Heavenly Christ as the Reality of the Heavenly Manna, so that we may be Reconstituted with Christ to become God’s dwelling Place.
- Hymns on this topic:
# One day, the manna fell, / Oh, what a wondrous feat; / This was the bread the Lord had giv’n / For Israel to eat. / Unique this manna is, / It comes with morning dew; / The visit of God’s grace it is, / Forever fresh and new. (Hymns #1147)
# Have you had your cup, your cup of Christ in the morning? / Start your day with a little restoring / With Christ as your new beginning. / What better way to start than to start the day singing? / Turn, turn your heart in the morning, / Take His blood, be washed from all things; / Nothing’s too big or small for Him, / He’s righteous and He will forgive; / Exercise your spirit in this way. (Song on, Cup of Christ)
# Once again a new beginning, / Yesterday I’ve put behind, / To You Lord I come in seeking, / For Your Words, bring them to mind. / Oh Lord, grant me Your rich speaking, / Cause my spirit filled to be, / Lord, my heart and thoughts transforming, / That my life I live by Thee. (Song on, Today a New Beginning)
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