Have you ever felt like you were starving?

We all need to eat to survive. If you don’t eat, you will not only feel hungry, but you will suffer. You’ll feel weak. Your body will start to consume itself, such as fat stores and eventually muscle. Cognitive abilities begin to diminish. After a while, starvation can affect organ function and, of course, eventually, cause death.

Water is even more important since we have less water reserves than sources of energy in our bodies.

Physical Food and Spiritual Food
When Israel was in the wilderness, God provided food called, manna. It, along with quail, sustained the Israelites. Jesus, however, points out that there is a more important food, spiritual food, which only comes from God.

That spiritual food is Jesus, Himself.

Just as food sustains our life, Jesus was given for us to give and sustain our spiritual life. Without Christ, we are spiritually dead. By receiving Christ through faith we are given life. He, then, continues to sustain our spiritual lives through Word and Sacrament.

The more we go without God’s Word and Sacraments the more we starve ourselves.

We become weak. Our spiritual thought processes begin to diminish. We could even become so estranged from God that we walk away from the faith and die, spiritually.

God Offers a Feast
God is not stingy with our spiritual food. He offers a feast without end! He gives us His Word. He gives us the church. He even gives us His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. And guess what? You can eat all the spiritual food you want without getting fat. 😉

So, fix yourself a heaping plate of God’s Word. Eat it every day, even several times a day. Go out to “eat” on Sundays at church and receive His body and blood.

And don’t worry, Jesus already paid the bill.

Dear Jesus,

My soul hungers and thirsts for You. Give me the life-sustaining nourishment I need for my body and my soul. For You alone can satisfy.

Amen.