In the picture you can see swans on the lake, rather big swans. In fact they are peddle boats from Lightwater Valley Park, near Ripon in Yorkshire. There are real swans there but everything looks a bit artificial. Perhaps everything is too good.
2 Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
How often when we are tempted do we think about our soul finding delight, our soul being healthy? I know I spend far too much money on what may at first seem good for me but the danger of overindulging is always there. The family spent the day at this park and on a whole we enjoyed it. But some rides made me feel dizzy and sick, because they spun me around too fast and for too long.
The simple point I feel I need to make is that none of these things are bad, but there is always the danger of seeking comfort for the body, to cheer the body up so many times that it is a hard habit to break to seek God in prayer and feed the soul.
I know that some nights I am tired and I might seek to comfort eat, or just play on a computer game or just sit in front of the television just wasting away, instead of seeking God and asking for him to feed me with his eternal food. Why do I do this? Probably because of habits built up. And here we must start the fight. We must start a good habit of prayer so that we can routinely hear the word of God and be fed with his bread, Jesus Christ.
In the quote from Isaiah God uses the phrase “Listen carefully to Me!” This should make us sit up. It is not Isaiah saying this but God trying to make us pay attention.
32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”
35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
Jesus always seems to answer some phrase in the old testament by bringing it back to himself. Jesus still tries to make us sit up by saying “Most assuredly”, or I like the original King James version which uses “Verily, verily”. Most of the prophecies in the old testament pointed to Jesus, he is the word of God after all. But here we see that Jesus is referring to himself as the bread of life, by doing Jesus’ words we shall be fed. Jesus was fed by a food that they did not know of at the time, food from heaven – the will of the Father. The good news is that we shall never hunger, our souls will be fed by the eternal manna from heaven. Israel was fed by manna from heaven for forty years in the wilderness, but the bread from Jesus will never go off, never run out, never cause us any harm. Unlike the manna the Israelites collected, the bread from God can not go off. Jesus will strengthen us each day with more than enough sustenance for our souls to delight in abundance. How wonderful is that news?
Lord I pray I thank you for each day, for each blessing, and for guiding us through all the hard and busy times. I pray that I shall hear your word and I shall act upon this and this shall be my food, doing your will.
Amen
365 Exhortations 