Stale Bread

 "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst." John 6:35

If you've ever eaten stale bread, you know how unsatisfying that is. It's dry, tasteless, and hard. Bread, made fresh and well, is really a pleasure to consume. Not so with that which is stale. We don't settle for the stale in our physical lives, why do we in our spiritual ones?

In one of my prayer journals, I came across a statement I wrote a few years ago; "Lord, I'm tired of stale bread." I don't remember what prompted me to write that, but obviously, I hadn't been getting His bread fresh and whole. Certainly He offers it fresh and whole. How can it become stale?

Fresh bread becomes stale bread when it's left out and is unused. I think it's the same in the spirit realm. We have ample sources through which He gives us His bread of life. Foremost is His Word through His Holy Bible. We receive it in our personal reading, through messages from the pulpits of His church, through songs sung in the Spirit, and through the whisper of His Holy Spirit into our hearts. Really, He has no limitations in how He may provide us His bread of life. Our problem is that we too often leave His bread out and unused. It becomes stale, tasteless and dry. This happens because receiving His Word is not our priority. Scripture says that man shall not leave by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We know the Scripture but that hasn't prevented us from trying to live by the junk food and soda pop of this world. Meanwhile His bread of life, so readily available to us, is "left out," uneaten and stale. We may have been reading His Word and listening to messages in His church, but we've not really "eaten and digested" that work in our spirits. It's not become part of us. What He means to be living and alive is instead stale and dry. It happens all the time and always so easily. Has it been happening to you?

The good news is that though we can mask our hunger for His fresh bread with our consumption of the world's junk food, we cannot extinguish the hunger for it. He created us to hunger for it. We grow weary of junk food and the staleness of unused bread. We hunger for the real thing. When we come to full awareness of that, He is right there, offering us His bread fresh, whole, and new, and it only takes but a bite to experience how delicious it is. How life giving it is.

Have you had enough of the world's junk food and the stale, second hand bread that you've left uneaten? Come and receive from His hand the bread of life, His life. Have it fresh and whole and as much as you like. He never runs out. He never will. Come. Eat and be filled.

Blessings,
Pastor O