The just shall live by faith.
“Don’t forget to eat! Why, I couldn’t forget that if I would try,” says Ernest, “for I like to do it too well. And then, another thing, my head begins to hurt, and I feel weak and faint if I have to miss even one meal. I can’t work and I can’t live at all without eating, so I don’t think there’s much danger that I will forget to eat.”
Yes, but listen a minute. Do you know that you become the food that you eat? If you eat good, nourishing food, you will grow strong and healthy, but if you eat poor, decaying food, you become weak and sickly, and finally die. Even the best bread, vegetables and fruit that you can find in the market cannot build you up and make you grow into a perfect person. It may enable you to live a physically healthy life, but it cannot make your life last for more than a few short years at most. Then its power is all spent, and your life is all gone.
God says that you cannot live by earthly bread alone, but you must also have Heavenly Bread every day. Earthly bread, like all earthly things, does not have life in itself, but soon passes away. It does not have life to give you. But the Bread of Life from heaven is so full of life that it can give you life even eternal life. If you eat it every day, it will make you grow up perfect, like Jesus, so that you will want to do only pure, good things; and it will also give you strength to do them. You know that you don’t get that from earthly bread. You try again and again to do what is right but cannot.
Will God rain this Bread down from heaven for you every day, as He did the manna for the Israelites? No, for He already sent it to you, and it is within your reach.
God says that you will find all the Heavenly Bread that you can possibly need—in your Bible! The words that you see in your Bible are not the same lifeless words that you read in other books. Jesus says that the words of the Bible are full of life of His life. And He says, “I am that bread of life that was sent down from heaven.”
Don’t you see that since the life of Jesus is in those words, you can get Jesus, the Bread from heaven, just by feeding on those words? You can eat them, and make them a part of yourself, by reading them every day, and believing that they are your heavenly Father speaking to you; by loving them, and believing that by them Jesus comes into your heart.
And when Jesus is in your heart won’t His powerful word, that created the earth and the entire universe, keep you from sin and strengthen you to say kind words and do loving acts? You say, “Why, how can Jesus come into my heart with His Word? How can I feed on Him by feeding on His Word?” That is a question that I cannot answer. I do not know how it can be. But you do not need to know how it is done. Jesus says that He will do it, and isn’t that enough? You know that He has done it, and is living every day in your heart as you eat His words.
Oh, prize your Bible! Love it and read it as no other book. Again I say, Don’t forget to eat the Bread of Life every day. You need it much more than your earthly food. Feeding on it once a week will not keep you alive for heaven, any more than eating your earthly food once a week will keep you alive for earth. So DON’T FORGET TO EAT!
Living By Faith- E.J.W., and A.T.J.
Amen.