Jesus said that he was nourished by doing the will of the Father; so nourished that he went from being physically hungry, to having the food in front of him, and saying, no thanks, I just did the will of the Father, my needs have been met. I don’t want that food.
People! This is nuts! Please, do me a favor and try this one out. Next time you’re over at a friend’s house and they offer you something to eat, just say, “No thanks, doing the will of the father is nourishment enough for me.” Could you even do that with a straight face? I haven’t been able to yet. I always laugh because it sounds unnatural. Seriously, how did the disciples respond to that? This concept only makes sense to me in the context of prophecy. When Jesus does something that doesn’t make sense, I like to consider if it is prophetic. We must look deeper than the surface. Or maybe Jesus is showing us dieting techniques! I will paraphrase, but I hope you can find time t
o read it on your own.
John 4:4-42, Jesus and the disciples were on a journey, when the disciples broke away to go look for food and we find Jesus alone at Jacob’s well having an encounter with a Samaritan woman. The passage notes that Jesus is tired from the long walk and sat wearily beside the well at noon time. When Jesus saw the woman drawing water, he says to her, “Please give me a drink.”
Because it is not socially accepted for Jewish men to speak to Samaritan women, she was surprised. She said, “Why are you asking me for a drink?”
Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water: And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?
Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It be
comes a fresh, bubbling spring within them giving them eternal life.”
“Please, sir” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”
“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. “I don’t have a husband.” the woman replied.
“You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth.!”
At the is point, the woman realizes that Jesus is special, she thinks he is a prophet. She indicates that she believes that a Messiah is coming to explain everything. Jesus tells the woman that he is the Messiah, the One in whom she seeks. So, she left to tell others about the Messiah. And the people believed her and came streaming in from the village to see him. Meanwhile, the disciples returned to Jesus with food and were urging him to eat. “Rabbi, eat something.” But Jesus replied, “I have a kind of food you
know nothing about.” “Did someone give him food while we were gone?” The disciples asked each other. That is when Jesus said, “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work.”
Whew! This is the kind of verse that I usually read, and then simply journal, “Lord, what in the world were you talking about? Please help me understand these words.” And that would be my whole journal entry. Over time, the Lord always gives me insight when I want it.
In this account, he planted one figurative seed in the woman at the well, but she had gone out and told others about Jesus being the Messiah and the harvest was happening that very moment! As Jesus and the disciples were standing there, many people were walking out to hear more about Jesus. The will of the Father is to share the Good News, the harvest is the people that respond.
Jesus said, “I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom in other towns because that is why I was sent.” Luke 4:43
Jesus is fulfilling his purpose for being on earth and it satisfies him.
As a Christ follower, I hope to arrive at the point that doing the will of the Father fills me up in the same way as a Thanksgiving meal. Except the Will of the Fath
er will be a lasting satisfaction. I cannot say doing God’s will replaces the need for food, because it only happened once in Scripture and Jesus was making a specific prophetic point. Jesus did eat on many occasions.
I remember having a particularly difficult 6-year-old foster child in our home. It was so hard on the whole family, but I had a moment looking into his sweet little innocent eyes and feeling like I was made to love this little hurting boy. I was sent to show him Love, The Love. I felt like I was walking on water as I took care of him, because it was stormy! He was so hurt and difficult to love (in an earthly sense), but as he was in my home disrupting all kinds of peace, I felt a deep sense of love and peace. But the Peter syndrome hit me hard when I looked up and started listening to the pain this child was causing in my home, I started to sink. And I could no longer fulfil that purpose for that precious boy. We found another foster home for him. How I hope to harness that kind of Love again, because it was indeed fulfilling. I’ll never know what was right for me and my family, to keep that boy or let him go, I only know that we did our best.
Imagine if our main focus in life was to seek the Kingdom of God, which is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and then to love others as we love ourselves. Imagine every day spending the majority or even a quarter of the day, even an eighth of the day seeking God and relationship with him. If reading this makes you think about how impossible it would be to spend that much time seeking our Creator, then a life reassessment is in order. If you have any intention of experiencing the supernatural fruits of a relationship with God, you must invest in knowing him. Knowing him in a tangible way. Knowing Him in a biblical sense. Knowing, as in experiencing him. Not just knowing about him but knowing Him intimately. Eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Taking him seriously.
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. I live because of the living Father who sent me. In the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. I am the true bread that came down from haven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did, but they will live forever.” John 6:53-58
Sheesh, Jesus says “eat my flesh and drink my blood” one too many times. But he said it over and over. Eat my flesh, drink my blood, it leaves quite the vampire feel. The point is, I think, He needs us to want him in a visceral way, in the same way we crave food, we should crave relationship with Jesus. Whom of you can go a day without food without noticing that you didn’t eat or wishing you had?
Just this week, for the first time, I felt a longing, or hunger inside, in the late afternoon, to just fall on my knees before the Father. So as soon as I could, I did. I shut myself in my bedroom door and fell on my knees, I was desperate for connection. I need so much grace to mother my four boys. My pride is always trying to push grace out.
Jesus relates the story of the mana. Mana doesn’t seem as gross as eating flesh, unless you consider eating food off the floor. Actually, I think mana was something that needed to be processed and cooked so we are good there. But it was to be processed, it wasn’t like popcorn falling down from the sky and little children rolling around in it and tossing it up over their heads and throwing into each other’s mouths. It was definitely not like the wonder bread we buy in stores already to eat, slap some quail on that and you got a sandwich. The quail also took some work, now that I think about it. God provided labor for the Israelites; it was no convenience store. Maybe work was another way to occupy them to reduce the complaining. I digress.
The point is, the Israelites were nourished and sustained for survival, and Jesus compares himself to the mana. Where just enough comes every day, but the Israelites had to go out and seek and pick up the mana. Grace was being displayed in the mana situation because it says in Exodus 16:17,
“So the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot, some only a little. But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what they needed.”
Similarly, grace is shown to us as some people block out significant time meditating and listening, and others simply pray and listen on their jogs or drive to work, and he shows up for us in both cases. Some even get blindsided, like Saul on the road to Damascus.
The book of John says Jesus is the Word made flesh. If you eat the word, you expect it to sustain you. In America, we find it hard to look at food as life giving. It has been there for me, without fail every day of my life. I have never looked at a plate of food and thought, “Oh thank God! I can live another day!” No, for good or for bad, I’ve had more than enough food surrounding me my whole life. But I know people that do not know if they will eat that day. When they look at food, it has a whole new meaning.
Oh, that we would be so hungry for the word of God.
Just as food has always been there for me, so the Word if God has always been there for me. In my younger years, I read the Bible to look good or feel better about myself, many days I neglected it. I didn’t think of it as life giving because it had always been there. I didn’t find life in the Word of God until I encountered pain in my life. Until I experienced depression and isolation. I was in a place of needing to feel connection and love, I was desperate, I was hungry. That is when the word became flesh to me! I needed to know how much I needed the Word before I could go to it for nourishment.
I was taught to read the Bible every day, spending an hour of “Quiet Time”. I read the Word, meditate on it, and I expected God to communicate with me. Slowly but surely, isolation faded away. I didn’t feel so alone, and one day, the heavens parted! I felt the Love of God pour over me. I had an encounter! Now I had something to crave.
As I learned how to go to the Word of God and relationship with him for nourishment, I learned that his teachings and ways of life are the only truly life-giving ways. I now go to him for nourishment, not just inspiration. I go to him to experience truth, to see the world in Truth.
In the books of Ezekiel and Revelations, the authors were told to eat scrolls. They had to eat the scroll to experience the truth.
Jesus is our mana. Eat him, believe every word he said, don’t dismiss the confusing stuff, eat it up. When I don’t understand, I ask the Spirit to give me understanding. Some people like to call this “chewing on the Word.” Jesus wants us to understand how real his spiritual message truly is! Jesus’ message and life, although Good News, is not a feel-good story. Jesus’ life and story are game changers--way changers. His way demands that we kill the old self off, start completely anew. Let the old things pass away.
2 Corinthians 5: 17, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone: a new life has begun!”
In my journey to find true nourishment I discovered Heidi Baker, a woman who has seriously learned how to die to self and nourish herself by Jesus. In Mrs. Baker’s account of God using her to heal blind people, she felt the Lord tell her that she was blind, and Heidi Baker prayed, “Let me see. Let me see. Open my eyes, God. Open my eyes.”
Mrs. Baker said “When I opened my eyes, I saw you—the bride of Christ in the Western world. I saw the church eating crumbs from the Father’s table when they are called to eat in the celestial realms of glory. I saw people malnourished and scavenging around instead of feasting on God’s incredible heavenly food. I saw people outside who were well clothed, and I realized that they were not clothed at all.
“Then I heard God say, “Many are hungry. Many are poor. Many are naked. Many are blind. Won’t you love them too?” He said, “I want to feed them fresh bread from heaven. I want to put My eye salve on their eyes and allow them to see.” From her book, Compelled by Love.
Mrs. Baker was in love with serving the truly poor people in the world, and God showed her that we, in the West, are just as poor as the physically poor people she was serving in Mozambique, we are poor in spirit. It’s sad, because we don’t know how poor we are. We are playing the game of life, and don’t realize how hungry we are. When the game of life takes a hit, and we face something terrible, our poor and hungry spirit might be exposed.