Dear Friends of “Dial Daily Bread,”
There is no need to doubt the miracles the Lord did in bringing Israel out of Egyptian slavery, including the pillar of fire by night and the crossing of the Red Sea. The Exodus story is a vital part of the Bible plan of salvation from sin. If God did not work those miracles to deliver Israel, then we have no assurance that He can work the miracles needed to deliver us from the power of sin now, and eventually, from eternal death. There is no difference in the power of God, Himself; He has to be the same today as He was then, or there is no hope.
Note that the Israelites were not commanded only to kill the Passover lamb, or to splash its blood on the door; they were actually to eat it, roasted. Thus God taught a precious lesson: it is not enough to read the Bible in a desultory way, carelessly, like popping a pill; we are to taste it, absorb it into our spiritual bloodstream.
Jesus used the same illustration in speaking of His word in John 6: “I am the bread of life.” “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. ... If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever ... Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life ...” (vss. 35, 50-54).
What sense can we make of that? (The unbelieving Jews made no sense of it, and we are in danger of the same!) It’s not a mechanical process; it’s heart-humbling belief, a receiving of the truth of the Word that always involves and requires contrition--repentance for our life-long disbelief!
Forgive my frankness, it’s a masticating of the Word, a breaking of it in the process, an entering and cherishing of its truth within the deepest recesses of the soul, so that--and here’s where we take off our shoes for this is holy ground--”the word [becomes] flesh.” What was bread today for your dinner is flesh and blood tomorrow; it’s you walking and talking. You are the food that you eat! Your physical being comes from no other source. So with your ingesting the Word It becomes digested in you, a part of you.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the “Dial Daily Bread” Archive: January 12, 1999.
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