Power Bread

Yesterday we mentioned how people tend to make God into their own image; we often project our thoughts and feelings upon God and then say that is how He is. Maybe something like, God would not care if I am late to work, which probably comes from us not caring if we are late to work or not. What God actually tells us is go to your boss and ask him, “do you care if I am late to work” and then live off of that answer.

We also do the same thing with the Scriptures, we translate what we think the Bible means into our own terms and then say this is what God is saying to me. Today, I found myself doing that with Matthew 5:11, “Give us this day our daily bread.” When I have considered this passage I have always thought about bare minimum, about survival. Dear God, the very least you could do for me today, the smallest amount, what it would take for me to survive, would be a loaf of bread. If I had one loaf of bread from your hand, I could make it through today. But this passage means so much more than this.

Jesus told us that He was the bread of life, this being so Jesus can not be reduced to mere getting by. The life that Jesus gives can not be just surviving. The living joy that Jesus offers can not be minimized to a debased state of making it. He told us that He came to bring us life and that it would be abundant, filled with joy, love, and fruit, much fruit. This being the case He must be offering to us a very different kind of bread. I have been transposing my ideas of bread and survival onto the text, but now I receive this text and all other texts of the scripture together and find that He offers a bread with dynamic energy and results.

This is true, even stumbling upon this idea is beginning to enliven my day, it is setting forth new possibilities in my spirit. How often then have I short changed the goodness of God, supposing that He would do the bare minimum for me? If I serve God, well at least He will make sure I live through one more day. Now I find that I have not expected enough from His character, and when I see what He has done and is doing, I am enlivened. Have you though similarly of His goodness?