“Do not work for the food which perishes but for the food which endures to eternal life . . . ,” said Jesus. Perishing food imparts death. Living food gives life.
My work and lifetime passion is food. Over the years I have noticed how the body responds to what I might call “real” or “true” food. Such food helps your body really come alive. Other substances, not only fail to enable your body to achieve this vitality, they actively work toward death. True food for the body is that which enables biology to work as designed.
It was upon this understanding of food that Jesus said:
“The bread of God is he who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. . . . I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst. . . . This is the bread which comes down out of heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever. . . . It is the breath which gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words I speak to you, these are breath, these are life.”
In this discourse, Jesus is talking about more than the functioning of our cells. He has brought us back to the beginning, back to the moment when God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living being. This breath of life is the image of the living God.
Like real food to the body, this breath of life allows the person to function as designed. If we abide in this breathing of life, then we are truly alive. If we try to gain life some other way, we are feeding upon poison and we die.
Isaiah describes those made alive by the breath of God saying, “And all your sons will be taught of the Lord; and the well-being of your sons will be great. In righteousness you will be established. . . .” He goes on the query:
“[Are you hungry and thirsty for this], come to the waters; and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend yourselves for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good. Delight yourself in abundance [of listening to me]. Incline your ear and come to me. Listen that you may live. . . .”
The food that gives life to the whole person is received by the ear that hears the voice of the living God. But how do we encounter this voice of God? And what about those poisons that could destroy us? Couldn’t we unknowingly eat them? Surely if we rigorously adhere to the practice and pursuit of our religion won’t we be safe?
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying:
“Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship the Lord . . . add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh, but I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. This is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God and you will be my people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear but walked in their own council and in the stubbornness of their evil heart. They turned themselves backward and not forward . . . they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did evil more than their fathers. . . .’”
Living food is hearing and obeying the voice of God. All else, paint it and package it as you will, is poison. And we do paint and package all manner of things as being good and acceptable to God and worthy of our devout practice.
When searching for real food for the body, there are two questions you must ask: “In what soil was this food grown?” and “What has been done to it on the way to me?” So it is with the food for the person, we need to ask a similar question. “What is the source?”
Let us take look at the opening of the book of John, “In the beginning was The Word. In him was life and the life was the light of men. This is the true light that enlightens everyone that comes into the world.” This is the establishment of the new covenant which God makes with his creation, “. . . and they shall not teach each man his brother saying, ‘know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest. . . ” There is no reason to be deceived by the “paint and package” and consume poison. We are to live in The Source. “Thus says God, ‘. . . woe to you who cover yourselves but not with my breath; who take counsel, but not of me. . . .’”
In a 1653 epistle, George Fox writes:
“Friends, when your minds go out from the pure [breath] of God and are drawn out from it, there the image of God comes to be lost, in those whose minds go out from the pure to lust after that which is in the fall, which may appear like truth in the notion. . . .”
He goes on to encourage his readers:
“Dwell in the pure and immortal and wait upon the living God, to have your hope renewed, and to be renewed again into the image of God, and the image of the devil defaced and the prince of the air cast out; for he lodgeth in the mind that doth despair and in the mind that doth presume.”
“So dwell in the light, and wait upon God to have the image of God renewed; and all come to witness yourselves to be restored by Christ Jesus into the image of God, and to be made by him like to God, pure, holy, perfect, and righteous . . . mind the joining to the life. Here ye are kept in the image of God. . . . dwell in that which is pure and eternal, which guides the mind to God. . . . Therefore, mind the substance . . . here ye will see, what stains, and what defiles, and the pure eye and ear will be opened to hear God.” (To see the full text send an email to . The epistle will be automatically sent to your inbox.)
If you are content to eat that which poisons, you will never come to know life. But if you know a hungering and thirsting after life, do not betray it. This is God’s blessing upon you. Dwell in the light (even though it shows you your nakedness, your deadness). Wait upon God to be restored by Christ Jesus into the image of God and to be made by him like to God, pure, holy, perfect, and righteous.
Ellis Hein is a long-time worker in the New Foundation Fellowship, professional wood turner, and a distributor for a line of all natural, whole food nutritional products. He has written many articles on the Gospel as preached by the apostles and the early Quakers. To learn more about the living food for the person, visit http://www.nffellowship.org. You can contact Mr. Hein by sending email to .
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