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The Real Wonder Bread

by Skip Heitzig |
I think it's safe to say that we love to eat. One of the biggest industries in the U.S. is the food industry--eateries, restaurants, cafes, bistros. I find it interesting that the Bible, and even Christ Himself, so often used food analogies. Jesus must know that we love to eat!

Well, imagine living off a bread that tastes incredible, makes daily life wonderful, saves you, secures you, makes you live forever, and is non-fattening. That would indeed be wonder bread! And that's exactly what I want to look at today in John 6: the Bread of Life. Specifically, I want to look at the menu before us--what is the Bread of Life?--and the master plan--what will this bread do for us?

First, what is this bread? It's pretty straightforward: in John 6, Jesus said to the multitudes, "For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.... I am the bread of life" (vv. 33, 35). So it's not a matter of what this bread is, but who it is.

Look at what the crowds said in response to this: "Then they said to Him, 'Lord, give us this bread always'" (v. 34). They were thinking in physical terms--physical loaves of bread. "You've got the wonder bread, Jesus? That's great--hook us up! You're like a walking bakery." They didn't get it. They didn't connect.

The bread Jesus was speaking about was Himself--a whole different kind of bread. And the life He was speaking about was a whole different kind of life, too. In fact, the word He used for life in verses 33 and 35 doesn't refer to physical life or even psychological life. He used the Greek word zóé, which refers to a quality of spiritual life that starts now and lasts forever. Real life.

Jesus summed it all up nicely in John 10:10 when He said, "I have come that they may have life [zóé], and that they may have it more abundantly"--or to the max, overflowing. That's the kind of life He was speaking about. And that's what's on the menu before us.

Now let's consider the master plan: What will this wonder bread do? What are the benefits of it? First and foremost, this bread will save you: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life" (John 6:47). And what do you have to do to be saved? In verse 37, Jesus said, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me." Simply put, if you come to Jesus by separating from sin and submitting to Him, you will have eternal life.

This bread will also satisfy you: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst" (v. 35). There is a profound hunger in the heart of every single person for something that'll satisfy them, and that hunger can only be fulfilled by this bread. That's how God designed us.

Third and finally, this bread will secure you. Three times in John 6, Jesus said, "I will raise him up at the last day" (see vv. 40, 44, 54). He was giving us an iron-clad guarantee that even when we die, there'll be a resurrection of our physical bodies. Even in the face of death, the Bread of Life gives us security in our eternal salvation.

I remember as a kid hearing commercials about how "Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies twelve ways!" I never knew what those twelve ways were; I just knew that they claimed their white bread gives you all the calcium and vitamins you need.

I'm not so sure about that, but I am sure about the Bread of Life. Guaranteed it will save you, satisfy you, and secure you. Rest in the fact today that it will give you the kind of life people are searching for--the kind of spiritual nutrition found not in a physical loaf of bread, but in the living person of Jesus Christ.

In His strong love,

Skip Heitzig

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