The Seven I AM Statements Series #1: Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life

In conjunction with the message from God that we had received at church yesterday, I would like to share my thoughts on the seven 'I AM' statements that Jesus made while He ministered to the people of His time.

All of this is about becoming more like Christ and knowing how Jesus dealt with the struggles of life and ultimately overcame them

I believe that by examining these statements that Jesus uses to identify Himself, we would know more about Him and experience Him in a deeper way.

As it is written in John 6:35, "Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty."

This is the first of the statements that Jesus will declare, describing us about Himself and His mission or the reason why He came to the world.

We know that Jesus came into the world to be its Savior as it is also written in John 3:16-17. Jesus further elucidates what He came here to do by specifying certain characteristics that He possesses and has been shown to Him and given to Him by the Heavenly Father.

Let us try to see through Scripture who Jesus wants to be in our lives and what He wants to do for us.

Jesus told us that He is the bread of life. The word 'bread' has been commonly used throughout the Bible and it represents the satisfaction of our needs.

While the Israelites wandered through the desert for forty years, God sent manna raining down from heaven to feed them and to satisfy their daily needs.

Jesus also performed many miraculous signs and one of them was feeding five thousand or more people with five loaves of bread and two fish.

When Jesus taught us how to pray through the Lord's prayer, one of the things that He prayed to God for was "to give us this day our daily bread."

And when Jesus was tempted by the devil to turn the stone into bread, Jesus replied through Scripture by saying, "Man does not live on bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

During the Last Supper, Jesus also broke bread and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." So we see a lot of reference to 'bread' as a source of our fullness and satisfaction of our needs.

Now, Jesus tells us that He is the bread of life and that anyone who comes to Him will never go hungry and anyone who believes in Him will never go thirsty.

Basically, Jesus is saying that only He can truly satisfy the needs of our soul and our spirit. We eat physical food everyday for us to survive but when we commune with God and go to Jesus, He will be able to satisfy a greater need so that we may experience a full and meaningful life as Jesus has promised in John 10:10.

Only Jesus can bring love, joy, and peace overflowing in our lives which is why He is the bread of life. Moreover, Jesus says that we will never go hungry nor go thirsty which means that He refers to eternal life and an eternal hope in Him.

Jesus can satisfy the needs of our heart, soul and spirit when we go to Him in prayer and meditate on His Word. Remember that in the first chapter of the book of John, the writer tells us the most important information that would set the direction for the book and that is by saying,

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

Jesus is the embodiment of the Word and everything that God knows, He has taught to Jesus and so Jesus showed us everything that the Father showed and taught Him thus He gave us a glimpse of who the Father is.

Jesus is the bread of life and it is by every word that He has spoken and every lesson that He has taught to the disciples which are recorded in the Bible that we are given a way to knowing more about Him and God the Father and about eternal life and how we can receive it through Him alone.

So whenever we partake of communion, we are entering into the presence of God and coming to His table. In doing this, we have to examine ourselves as Paul had said and ask God for forgiveness so that He will cleanse and purify us from all unrighteousness.

We recognize that it is only through the selfless sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that we have been made right in the sight of God. We must humble ourselves before God especially when entering His presence and to remember His grace, mercy, goodness, and faithfulness.

Remember that Jesus died for us on the cross and paid for our sins so that we may be saved through Him and not by our own actions. We are only worthy to eat at the table of God because of Jesus.

I do hope that through the study of the Word, we will be able to realize how much Jesus has truly done for us and how much is willing to do for us. We must know that Jesus wants to be our all in all and He wants to give us the best that God has in store for us.

He wants to give us what is good for us and He wants to show us the way. We need to trust Him and put ourselves wholly and completely to Him without holding anything back.

We have to follow His ways and to let go of our old, sinful nature so that we can live the life that He has promised us, one in which we have a strong connection with God, obey His commands, know His desires and have them as our own.

I hope that we will be able to live in the path of righteousness according to the will of God and be vessels for the furtherance of His kingdom and the glory of His name.