The Bread

We usually do not ponder on activities which we consider to be a normal part of our daily lives.

Because they are integrated into the fabric of our daily routine, they merge into the wallpaper of our lives, invisible to our consciousness.

Take for example the times when we eat bread.

Why on earth should we give a second thought to something which is so natural and completely integrated into the routine of our lives?

What are we doing when we eat bread?

When we eat bread, we extract energy from our environment and turn it into fuel for the body.

Just like mechanical cars, the physical body needs fuel to be able to function.

Without the fuel we lack the energy to function optimally, and our body starts addressing energy reservoirs of our body.

Since we live in a the physical realm where all things have a beginning and an end, providing our body with fuel through the act of eating our daily bread is just a way of stretching out the death process over a number of years instead of a number of days in case we would abstain from feeding ourselves.

Eating is a way of recharging the temporary battery of the human body.

Long ago the people of Israel wandered through the desert on their way to the land promised to them by YHWH Himself.

They had turned their back on the hardship they endured as slaves in Egypt to pursue the promise of freedom and independence in a land YHWH had set apart for them.

They had been delivered from total destruction by the Egyptian army which pursued them, and as they traveled through the desolation of the desert they were fed with bread from Heaven for which they did not have to labor.

This bread from Heaven was YHWH's word of provision gone out of His mouth, speaking the energy of nutrition for their bodies into existence on earth so that the Israelites could feed themselves with it.

Each day it was readily available for them, except on the Shabbat.

After a while the people of Israel made a very important choice, a choice which showed the inclination of their hearts with painful sharp clarity.

They shouted at YHWH: "We want the meat from the earth instead of Your bread from Heaven, because we loathe the Manna You give us".

They preferred the meat which ties them to a death-centered existence over the bread of life coming down from Heaven.

It is this choice which makes it so clear why they could never enter the promised land.

They never developed an appreciation for and liking of the life-giving bread which their Father gave them from Heaven.

Their souls could never free themselves from the lures of the sensual delight the meat offered, and so they chose death over life.

They identified with death carrying the mask of sensual gratification, and this identity preferred the sensual delight of the meat of the Earth over the word of YHWH manifesting in the form of Manna.

How could this people ever claim the legacy of the freedom of the promised land with a mind set on the identity which was rooted in death and slavery?

The promised land could only be entered in faith, and faith comes from Heaven, just like the Manna they loathed.

On the stage of life there's a table with two dishes.

One dish has the bread of life on it, the other features a slice of delicious meat.

Yet the meat is the substance which ties us to a death-based existence.

To all who walk on the stage the choice is offered which dish we will choose to feed ourselves with.

To partake of the bread of life we choose to nourish ourselves with life from Heaven and deny ourselves the sensual pleasures of the meat which bind us to earth.

We cannot partake of both, since either we satisfy our appetite with the bread of life or we fill it with the bread which ties us to earth and its dualistic frame.

Satisfying our appetite with one destroys the appetite for the other, so we have to choose which food we shall partake of.

When we prefer the meat of this earth, we feed ourselves with that which ties us to death.

That meat does not have everlasting energy of life within itself.

It serves to fuel the battery of the body, which has a limited time-span set upon it.

The energy we get from the meat of the earth is limited and comes from a limited source of energy.

Yet the energy we get from the bread of life is without end because it comes from an unlimited Source of Existence.

When we eat of the bread from Heaven, we can feed ourselves with that which binds us to life, the living Bread Who came down to replenish and energize our Soul and Spirit.

Yahshua was the Word which proceeded out of YHWH's mouth manifesting as our Manna to feed our hungry souls with eternal life.

The generation of Hebrews which was born in bondage of slavery could never loosen itself from the yoke of slavery by their own strength.

When they were given the opportunity to rely on the Greater Strength, they chose the meat of the earth over the bread of heaven, death over life.

They set their compass to death, and they found death in their desert.

It took another generation not born under the yoke of slavery to be able to inherit the promised land.

The choice offered to Israel has not changed since they left their house of bondage.

Depending on the inclination of our soul we can choose for the meat on the table which binds us to a death-centered existence in the corrupted flesh, or we can choose for the Bread of Heaven which binds us to a life-centered existence in the Spirit.