Jesus the living bread

Hello to you all and once again, welcome to today's post.

From the image which you can see above here, I have a point to make concerning where I believe many of God's people are, at this time.

This morning Cath and I went out to Claremont for lunch and on the way back, I was speaking to her about the many people we have met over the past 2 years who have all become disillusioned and bored with church. As I began to speak to her about it all, I thought about a situation that occurred in Old Testament times which I thought would illustrate what I am trying to say here.

Please read on....

In the book of Ruth chapter 1 and verse 1 it reads.....

Now it came to pass, in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

What I see in the above passage of scripture is a story that unfolded in the lives of a prominent family in Bethlehem in Israel. It starts off by saying that during the time of the ruling of the judges, there arose a famine in the land.

Bethlehem in Hebrew means, "House of Bread".

You could easily say that there was no bread in the house of bread. Bethlehem was the bread basket of the whole area where there was a thriving agricultural community.

As the story unfolds we see this family leave everything behind to get out of the famine and to go where there they thought the life was.

I see this as a prophetic picture of what has been happening in the church with many christians Cathi and I come into contact with.

I believe that instead of us seeking the Lord for a manifestation of His living bread, Jesus Christ, we have subsituted Him with programs, church entertainment and other things to keep us going. If there is no bread in the house (an absence of the manifestation of Christ, the living bread), people will soon grow disillusioned by what is left.

I believe that the disillusionment we enter into is how we leave for Moab. This all happens in our hearts. Many of God's people have departed for Moab in their hearts. The word Moab means, "The seed of the father"or "The desirable land".

If Jesus the living bread is not strongly present in our hearts and manfesting His life in and through our lives, then people will begin to look towards something more desirable and replace Him with other things. Soon, disillusionment will set it and people will make the wrong choices.

As you continue to read through the first chapter of Ruth you will notice that as Elimelech and his family leave Bethlehem and settle in Moab, death comes to him and his two sons. Naomi and her two daughters in law are devastated.

Moab is not a place to be desired by God's people, but a place to be shunned, because the enemy is waiting to devour and kill their joy, purpose and destiny. Therefore it is dangerous to replace the living bread with a substitute, but rather to hang in, in Bethlehem and pray and seek the Lord for Him to visit them with the living bread. As the story unfolds in chapter 1, God surely does visit Bethlehem... The bible says that Naomi, Elimelech's wife, arose to return to Bethlehem, because she had heard that the Lord had visited His people, by giving them bread.

I believe that it is time for many of those who are disillusioned to hang in there and seek the Lord for Him to visit them and manifest Jesus, the living bread afresh in their hearts. As we get hungry and passionate about the Lord again and we seek Him, just for Him, He will soon come upon us and manifest Himself to us as, "The living bread".

I hope that these few thoughts will encourage you to continue to press in and seek the Lord as never before.

Blessings to you all,

Much love,

Rory