Thursday | Week 5

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” (John 6:35, NASB).

Bread. Homemade, fragrant, warm bread. It never tastes better than on a cold wintry day. Something about that snowy cold, while I am snug inside a warm house triggers the baking gene in me. When I was growing up, my high school was about a mile from our house. And since it was back in the old days, my sisters and I often walked home from school. Even in the snow! I know—unheard of today. But we knew, everyday our mother had an after-school snack waiting for us. We would walk in, starving and chilled to the bone, and the first thing that hit our senses was the aroma of either a fresh loaf of bread or a pan of warm cinnamon rolls. The cold walk forgotten, that soft, soul-warming bread satisfied our hungry tummies. We were home. Cold winter days and bread just go together.

When Jesus calls Himself the Bread of Life in John 6:35, He was saying more than “I can sustain your life with physical bread”, (as He had just done for 5000). He was saying, “My life —My very body—will give you life. Eat of Me. I will be your eternal life-sustainer in this cold world. My body is the true Living Bread.”

And so, the next time your soul feels cold or your circumstances stir up a hunger for something more than what this world can offer, open the Word of Life and eat of the Bread of Life. And if you do not know what this bread tastes like, sit before Jesus, give Him your sorrows, your hunger, your emptiness, your sin. Accept His broken body on the cross and receive His forgiveness. He will give eternal life that will leave you never hungering again.