students of jesus

Hungry? I’ve got some bread right here. It’s only a few months old. Just knock off the bugs, and don’t worry about the mold: I hear it’s the ingredient of a powerful antibiotic. How many pieces of bread would you like?

What—no takers?

And yet stale, moldy bread is the daily diet of so many believers. We seem quite content with day-old, month-old, years-old bread. When is the last time you heard a fresh word from God, or breathed in savory scent of his daily bread? The bread of life came down from heaven to us, but we thought it was a one-time event. Have we forgotten to pray “give us this day our daily bread?”

When Jesus said, ”‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” he was quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” And the Deuteronomy passage points us back to the manna of God’s daily provision for his people, first offered in the Exodus. Each day the honey-tasting wafers testified of the glory and goodness of God. Jesus revealed he himself was the true manna, “the living bread which comes down from heaven.”

The lesson then, and the lesson now, is that God provides every day. He provides food to eat and life-giving words for our souls. Yesterday’s bread—even bread from God, will not sustain us today. Are we unaware that even heavenly bread turns bad? In our insecurities we hold on to yesterday’s bread thinking it is all God has (or ever will) give us. Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church points out that Jesus calls us to look for every word that proceeds (present tense), as opposed to those words he has already spoken: “We need the proceeding word, not the preceding word.”

In Exodus God told Moses he would show his glory by providing manna. Each day he shows his glory by sharing fresh bread, fresh insight, abundant grace, and new mercies. Embedded in this miraculous provision is the lesson that we need each of these, new every morning.

Nor should we hold back in consuming this daily dose of goodness. There will be more tomorrow, because a loving Father always supplies. Among the sayings of Jesus, perhaps this clangs strangely on our modern ears: “take therefore no thought for the morrow.” Free indeed is the soul who can lean into the Lord’s instruction secure in the thought that God provides food and forgiveness, clothing and calm.

Yesterday’s bread has no portion for today. Fortunately, the Father is up and about his business before we wake. He wants to provide for us morning by morning. 

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