Good Morning Gorgeous,

It’s a brand new day. A fresh new start and there is 1 week left until Christmas!!!!!

How exciting to celebrate the birth of our Lord who was sent by the Father to earth to redeem all that was lost and to save everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

Today’s Name of Jesus caused much division when Jesus declared it. This Name was controversial. After Jesus preached the sermon in which He boldly declared, “I am the bread of life from Heaven, ” many of His followers walked away and left him. This teaching was just to difficult for them to grasp. He even looked to His 12 and said, “Are you going to leave too?”

They stayed in faith even when they didn’t understand His teachings, and their reward is great.

So background for this Name! It’s exciting to see all the puzzle pieces come together as we study His Names!!!

Manna was the original bread from heaven. Remember back when the Israelites left Egypt, they were in the desert and they became hungry.

The Lord of sustenance who called them out of slavery and into the desert was not going to abandon them to starve. You ALSO can be sure that if God calls you into a new space, He will provide for you there.

As the Israelites traveled and became hungry, the Lord provided a bread called Manna. Enough fell from the sky each day so that everyone had their fill with nothing left for the next day. God would provide a fresh fill each day. It was a type of flaky substance that they baked into bread. They got what they needed each day and double the day before the Sabbath.

So, now fast forward to the New Testament, Jesus is ministering to people and performing miracles and teaching them about Kingdom life. They are out on the countryside with thousands of people and nothing to eat, and this is where Jesus performs one of His miracles of feeding thousands of men, women, and children. He filled their physical need and provided for what they need, and so they pressed on and were following Him.

He sent His disciples by boat to a town across the water and tells them He’ll catch up. In the middle of the night, we get the scene where Jesus walks on water to the boat.

And NOW, its the next day and the people have searched the whole town for Him and some have gotten into boats to travel to Capernaum where He is teaching..

So just yesterday, they experienced Him multiplying a few fish and loaves of bread into enough to feed thousands and they want more of this. Imagine what they may have been thinking… they would never go hungry again if He continued to feed them in this way.

But Jesus had MORE for them than physical sustenance. He wanted to give them eternity. He wanted to give them everything. He wanted to give them so much more than temporary bread that you eat and then get hungry again.

Often times we pray for temporary provision, temporary relief, and Jesus wants to give us the whole redeemed, restored world instead.

So the followers are pretty smitten by Jesus and they are even traveling and following Him across towns and water to get to Him.

But then His next sermon becomes too much for many of them.

Here are some excerpts from John 6.

First, they ask what do we have to do?

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” John 6:28

He answers the same as He answers today, Believe in Me..

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:29

They wanted MORE proof, beyond the healings and beyond the multiplication of food from yesterday. And they quoted scripture about manna, the miraculous bread from heaven. They basically are saying to Jesus…. our ancestors saw bread fall from the sky, what will you do to prove Your power?

So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
John 6:30-‬31 NIV

His reply is awesome! He tells them that He is the bread sent from heaven! He is heavenly provision, and if you partake in His Provision, it will always be enough.

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 6:35 NIV

He tells them that He is the true bread from heaven that gives life.

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

He continues to explain that everyone who simply believes in Him will be raised to life.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
John 6:39‭-‬40 NIV

Here is where the crowd gets angry. How can He claim to be from heaven when they know His mom Mary and his father Joseph. Then, He REPEATS His sermon again almost the same as before. I am the bread of life. That manna was temporary. I’m eternal. If you believe and eat my bread, you will live.

At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
John 6:41‭-‬42 NIV

“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
John 6:43‭-‬51 NIV

And so, because this was too hard to understand, many turn away and go back to their former lives. They’ve heard enough. They wanted the miracles, the provision, and whatever else He had to offer. But when the teaching got too difficult to understand with their minds, and instead had to be received by faith, they exited. They rejected the bread of life that Jesus was offering because they couldn’t wrap their minds around it.

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
John 6:32‭-‬33‭, ‬66 NIV

And just like that, they rejected life and sustenance that would never leave them hungry or thirsty again.

Jesus told the woman at the well the same thing. He told her that He had water for her in which she would never thirst again. Living water. She was confused as well, but believed Him and went and told the whole town.

Friends, Jesus is offering us Himself as our bread and water. He is offering a spiritual meal that can fill our spirit in a way that

Comforts

Heals

Releases Burdens

Breaks yokes

Heals

Sets free and delivers

And gives us everything the world just can’t offer: internal peace, true identity, and a rock, solid foundation.

He wants to give you the whole restored world. He is preparing a place for those who love Him. And what He has to offer is far better than any temporary thing that you let go in order to fully follow Jesus.

Dear Heavenly Father,

This is hard teaching, but I cry out for a bold faith to just take You at Your Word. If You are bread and living water, I receive it fully in faith. Let my faith be greater and greater so that I trust every Word You have spoken. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Blessings!

Vanessa Lynn