Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Does the Bible have anything to say about the food we eat, our diet? Does God care about our eating? Have you ever known someone who has prepared a special gourmet meal for you as a guest, who hovers over you while you eat, hoping against hope that you like what he or she has prepared, and is disappointed if you express no genuine appreciation? Could God be like that?
Of course, we know that the Bible says that God created all the food which we enjoy; it says that He "satisfies your mouth with good things" (Psalm 103:5). Strawberries, for example. You won't starve for want of strawberries! God created them simply because they taste good (a little illustration of His love)!
The Bible also pictures God kneeling down and opening His hand to feed the little chipmunks and squirrels, and deer, and rhinos, yes, and us too: "The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing" (Psalm 145:15, 16). Can you imagine the heavenly Father getting so intimately involved with every one of us personally, as that? Yes! The Bible says so!
There is one more intimate detail in the Bible about our food: Jesus teaches that the temporal, daily food we eat is ours only because of His great sacrifice in giving Himself for the world. Here it is: "I am the bread of life. ... I am the living bread which came down from heaven, ... and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. ... Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:35, 51-53).
The people didn't understand Him then, and many were so offended by this that they "went back and walked with Him no more" (vs. 66). What did He mean? Just this: He says that the food you eat day by day is "My body which is broken for you" (1 Cor. 11:24). This is something startling! Every meal, if we have faith, becomes a sacrament, the Lord's Supper!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 4, 2001.
Copyright © 2016 by "Dial Daily Bread."
