Having a Change of Diet to Eating Christ as the Real Manna (picture credit: Diet)
The deep truth in Exodus 16 and in the whole book of Exodus is that God wanted to change the diet of His people from the Egyptian food to the heavenly food, the heavenly manna.
Even though the people of Israel were positionally no longer in Egypt but in the wilderness, in their constitution they were “Egyptian”, that is, constituted with and yearning for Egyptian food. Because they lived their whole life in Egypt, they desired to eat Egyptian food and even told Moses that it was so much better in Egypt where they had enough food to eat.
God delivered His people from under the usurpation and tyranny of Pharaoh in Egypt, brought them through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, and here a long process of reconstituting begins.
God’s goal is to have a dwelling place among man, and for this He delivered His people from Egypt to bring them into the good land and have them built up as His dwelling place. However, God cannot build up His dwelling place with “Egyptian people”, that is, with the people of Israel constituted with the Egyptian element.
Therefore, God tested His people and fed them with heavenly food for forty years until their whole being was reconstituted with the heavenly element to become the heavenly people of God to build up and be built up into God’s dwelling place on earth.
In our Christian life it is the same: God wants to gain a built-up church as the Body of Christ, but He cannot do so with worldly people, that is, with believers who enjoy the world and are constituted with the element of the world. Therefore, we as God’s people need a change of diet: we need to eat Christ as the heavenly manna, the bread of life, so that we may be reconstituted with Christ and build up the Body of Christ as God’s habitation on earth today.
Not only do we need to believe into the Lord, be baptized, and come into the church life, but we need to be in the constant process of being reconstituted with Christ and to live because of Christ in order to become God’s dwelling place in the universe, the church as the Body of Christ.
We need to have a Change of Diet to Eating Christ to be Inwardly Constituted with Him
In Exo. 16:3-4 the children of Israel complained against Moses when they ran out of food, desiring to go back to Egypt where they had bread and meat; instead of rebuking them, Jehovah said to Moses, I will now rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My law.
Even though the people of Israel were no longer in Egypt positionally, the Egyptian constitution was still in them, and they desired to eat Egyptian food. With them there was a change in position: they were no longer in Egypt but in the wilderness; however, this didn’t change their inward being. There had to be an inward, subjective change, a change in life and in constitution. Therefore, God had to change their diet.
The deep truth in Exodus is that God wants to change the diet of His people so that they may be reconstituted with the heavenly food and become heavenly people to build up and be built up as God’s building, God’s habitation on earth.
In our Christian life what God wants to do is to change our diet: we need to have a change of diet from eating worldly things, entertainment, music, sports, etc to eating Christ as the heavenly food, the bread of life. The Lord “rains” heavenly food on us – He is so available as the bread of life for us to enjoy; all we need to do is exercise our spirit and take Him in.
Even though we were saved, we were baptized, and we came into the church life, we still need to have our diet changed, otherwise in our constitution we are the same as the other people in the world. God cannot build up the church with worldly people; He needs a people who are heavenly in their constitution, a people filled with Christ as the heavenly food, so that they may build up the Body of Christ as God’s habitation.
We cannot avoid eating what the world has to offer; daily we are “bombarded” with music, movies, TV, entertainment, internet, Facebook, emails, food, etc – there are many “dishes” that the world has to offer so that it may appeal to our natural man and our flesh.
We grow up in the world, we feed on the things of the world, we are trained in the things of the world, and we live in the world; however, we need to have a change in diet – our inward constitution needs to change in order for us to become heavenly people constitutionally.
May the Lord cause us to realize that, as believers in Christ, we are now in the realm of resurrection, and we need to have a change of diet to a diet of Christ as the real manna sent to us by the Father for us to eat, enjoy, and be reconstituted with.
Whatever we eat is what we become and is what motivates our daily living and activities; if we feed on the world with all it has to offer, we become worldly people and cannot build up God’s house, but if we daily eat Christ as the bread of life, the real manna, we are reconstituted with Him and we build up the organic Body of Christ.
God’s desire is to fill us and satisfy us with Christ as the heavenly food so that we may be filled with Christ and reconstituted with Him inwardly, thus becoming heavenly people building up His spiritual house, the church as the Body of Christ.
Lord Jesus, change our diet to a diet of Christ as the real manna sent by God the Father for us to eat, enjoy, and be reconstituted with! Lord, keep us eating of You as the real food, the bread of life. Save us from our worldly taste and desires. Keep us eating the heavenly manna day by day until we are reconstituted to become Your heavenly people building up Your habitation on earth. O Lord Jesus, how much we need a change in diet from any food the world has to offer to Christ as the bread of life!
Simple ways of Eating Christ as the Real Manna in our Christian Life
How can we as God’s people today eat Christ as our real manna? Christ is the bread of life, the living bread, and the bread coming out of heaven; He is the reality of the manna that came down from heaven for God’s people to eat (see John 6).
In order for us to eat Christ as the real manna we need to turn to our spirit and exercise our spirit to take Him in as we read the word of God. Especially in the morning, before we start the activities of the day, we need to spend time with the Lord and exercise our spirit to eat Him and enjoy Him.
It is easy for us to exercise our mind or understanding when we come to the word of God, but we need to learn to exercise our spirit to get the nourishment in the word of God. The first thing we should do each morning is come to the Lord in the Word and feed on Him.
Day by day, morning by morning, as we eat the Lord in His word, we are inwardly supplied, reconstituted, and sustained to live the Christian life for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. Just as manna sustained the children of Israel in the wilderness for forty years, so Christ as our real manna today can sustain the church – and can sustain us in our daily Christian life.
Christ as the bread of life is heavenly food for us; we should look away from our earthly situation and condition and exercise our spirit to touch the Lord and eat Him in His word so that we may enjoy the bread out of heaven, the bread of God (John 6:22-23).
During the day we need to have set times in which we turn from anything else and eat the Lord; eating the Lord doesn’t mean “understanding Him” but exercising the right organ (our mingled spirit) to eat (that is, take in, receive, and enjoy) Christ as the bread of life.
When we exercise our spirit to call on the name of the Lord and pray over His word, the written word of the Bible becomes the instant, living, and applied word of God to nourish us, reconstitute us, supply us, and cause us to be the heavenly people of God for the building up of the church, the Body of Christ.
If we don’t eat Christ as the real manna, however, we will by default desire to live the same way others live in the world (as we were once among them and like them), but when we eat Christ as the real manna, we will live a heavenly life on earth for God to have a dwelling place in man.
Lord Jesus, wake us up in the morning to gather the real manna, Christ as the bread of life. Lord, we want to cooperate with You by exercising our spirit to pray-read the word of God so that it would become living, instant, and applied to our situation. Lord, save us from using our mind too much when we come to Your word: may we use our mingled spirit to receive the life supply in the Bible! Reconstitute us, Lord, with Yourself as the heavenly element as we exercise our spirit in coming to Your word and in living our daily life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 33, 36, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 9 / msg 9, The Change of Diet to the Heavenly Christ as the Unique Food for God’s People (you can buy this morning revival book here via LSM and here via Amazon).
- Hymns on this topic:
# Lord, Thou art the Heav’nly Manna, / As our daily food supply; / Strengthening and energizing, / All our need to satisfy. (Hymns #196)
# Early in the morning, / Meeting with the saints, / Gather the fresh manna, / Take in His rich grace! / Christ in all the saints, / Living, fresh and new. / Blending with each other, / Tasting morning dew! (Song on Eating the Manna)
# Begin the day with God, He really wants you to / Hoping you’ll let Him come and spend the day with you. / Rise up! Don’t wait! You’ll miss the Son. / It’s the best part of the day. / His taste is sweet, to all who meet / Him in the morning when He’s fresh and new. (Song on Spending Time with God)
About aGodMan
By giving His people manna to eat, God indicated that His intention was to change the nature of His people. He wanted to change their being, their very constitution. They had already undergone a change of location. Formerly they were in Egypt. Now they were with the Lord in the wilderness, a place of separation. However, it is not sufficient merely to have a change of location, for this is too outward and too objective. There must also be an inward, subjective change, a change of life and nature. The way for God to produce such a change in His people is by changing their diet. By eating Egyptian food God’s people had been constituted with the element of Egypt. The element of the world had become their composition. When they were in Egypt, they did not partake of anything heavenly, for everything they ate was according to the Egyptian diet and was Egyptian in nature. Although God’s people had been brought out of Egypt into the wilderness of separation, they were still constituted with the element of Egypt. Now God’s intention was to change their element by changing their diet. He did not want them to eat anything that came from a worldly source. They were no longer allowed to eat Egyptian food. God wanted to feed them with food from heaven in order to constitute them with the heavenly element. His desire was to fill them, to satisfy them, to saturate them with food from heaven, and thereby to make them a heavenly people. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 387-388)
This article has blessed me this morning. I was so excited as I was reading it. I love when God speaks through man in this manner. He is an awesome God! Keep eating the bread of life and your writing will always be nourished by God!