Alan Dean
Retired Pastor
Seventh-day Adventist Church
I once owned a bread bakery in Franklin County that I operated for 17 years. We made a variety of whole grain breads of different flavors, such as raisin, cashew-date, sunflower-oat, rye, sprouted wheat, and honey whole wheat.
Back in the 1980s these were unique, healthy breads that gained a good demand. People were hungry for something tasty and healthy. It was a joy to get to know people who wanted to eat nutritious food and enjoyed our bread.
Following these years of baking, God led me into pastoral work. Now I was promoting another bread, Jesus, the Bread of Life. For 21 years now I’ve been sharing the Bread of Life in different flavors to meet the tastes of different people. For some they may be tasting it for the first time and need introduced to Jesus.
Others are hungry for a higher quality, more fulfilling type of Bread. They are wanting to make a greater commitment to Jesus, which comes through a deeper understanding of God’s Word. It’s been a joy to get to know people who have an interest in making Jesus their Savior and Lord.
But wherever we are in our relationship with Jesus, we need to feed on His Word, the Bread of Life. In the world of plants it is a fact that to stop growing is to start dying. It is the same for us spiritually. To stop growing we will die. In our busy world it can be quite a challenge to keep growing in God’s Word daily. There are so many pulls on our life. However, now more than ever, we must make it a priority or our faith will suffer.
The Apostle Paul says “we are saved by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:8), then in Romans 10:17 he adds that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” By listening to a Bible CD in the car, or by reading the Bible on a break during the day or evening, we can all take advantage of God’s Word daily to give us wisdom, spiritual strength, and faith.
We need to eat the whole grain Bread, the Old and New Testament, and not the incomplete, refined Bread. Jesus says of the Old Testament scriptures: “Search the scriptures, for they are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39). Paul adds in 2Tim 3:16 that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God.”
The Bible, cover to cover, is all about Jesus. In Psalms 34:8 the Lord says “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” The Bread of Life is full of good flavor and fulfills every nutrient need we have. The question is: Are we hungry for it?