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Bread

             Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)

                He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

                Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11)

                Today’s first verse comes from the account of the devil’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness as Jesus’ answer when Satan challenged Him to turn stones into bread to prove He was the Son of God.  The second verse is what Moses said to the Israelites about manna and their relationship with God. It’s the Scripture that Jesus was citing in his refutation of Satan’s argument.

                Sometimes as we look at the first verse, we may be tempted to think that what God’s saying is that we’d better obey orders. We may think that the words that come from God’s mouth are all commands and criticisms. What if that’s not the meaning? What if the meaning is closer to “there’s more to life than food”? Or even “There are things that are more important than food”?

                God’s Word isn’t just a bunch of commandments. It feeds all our life, while bread just feeds our body. It’s necessary and good, but incomplete. In fact, God’s Word addresses what we eat, and how we eat it. In the verse in Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that God made them hungry so they’d learn that there was more to life than food. And in the verse from Matthew 6, Jesus reminds us that God doesn’t mind if we ask for bread. It’s our attitude and attention that matter. 

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