The only food God gives us today in our Christian journey is Christ as the heavenly manna; this food is balanced, good, small enough to eat, perfect, without any mixture, cooling and refreshing us, full of life, solid, bright and transparent, tasty, and nourishing.
We may think that we may need something else besides manna, but according to the characteristics of the manna and their spiritual significance, the only thing we need is manna – the heavenly Christ as our daily supply.
God wants not only to rescue us from the world but also reconstitute us so that His divine element would be wrought into us and constituted into our being to make us His dwelling place.
We need to see and experience the characteristics of Christ as our heavenly manna, our unique food, our daily manna; when we enjoy and eat such a One, we are metabolically transformed.
Manna is a mystery – when the children of Israel saw it on the ground they asked, What is this? Just as the children of Israel could not analyze or explain manna, so we cannot analyze or explain the Lord Jesus – we simply need to exercise our spirit and eat Him, take Him in, and be constituted with Him.
Manna is a long-term miracle – it was sent every morning to be gathered every morning for forty years; Christ as our heavenly food is ready and available for us to “gather” every morning.
We must experience Christ as our life supply daily, morning by morning, and He will become an eternal constitution in our being.
Christ is the bread out of heaven, the bread of God, and the living bread, the One who came down out of heaven to be our food – the reality of manna, who came down from heaven to be the Israelites’ food.
When we enjoy Christ in the morning, we have a new beginning; as we eat Him, we also enjoy the dew, the Lord’s refreshing and watering grace brought in by His fresh compassions.
Praise the Lord, His compassions never fail – they are new every morning, and His faithfulness is great.
We simply need to get up in the morning and turn our heart to the Lord, exercise our spirit, and pray over God’s word, opening our whole being to the Lord, so that we would eat Christ as the heavenly manna in our living contact with Him.
We shouldn’t have a tradition, custom, or routine in the morning in our time with the Lord; we should simply contact Him in spirit and pray over His word.
Eating Christ as the Heavenly Manna: He is small, balanced, fine, perfect, white, refreshing, and full of life
It is so wonderful to look at the manna and have the whole Bible open up the many features and characteristics to apply these to our daily Christian life and experience!
Manna is small; as the heavenly manna, Christ was born in a manger and He was raised in the home of a carpenter in a small, despised town (Exo. 16:14; Luke 2:12; John 6:35).
People usually appreciate something big and great, and when they speak of Jesus they speak of His greatness, but the four Gospels reveal someone who shunned greatness and always wanted to stay small, hidden, and not be enthroned or glorified.
The Lord came to be the reality of manna – He was small for us to eat and take in as food.
We can’t eat big pieces of food at a time; the food has to be cut in small pieces in order to enter our mouth, and manna was small.
The crowds wanted to enthrone Him as king, but He hid Himself from them; He fled any human exaltation and presented Himself as the bread of life to man (John 6:35). When we eat Christ as the heavenly manna, we are preserved to be small, not to exalt ourselves or do something great.
By enjoying Christ daily we are kept and preserved in humility, not showing off, but being full of life and ministering food to others.
Manna is fine – indicating that Christ is even and balanced and that He became small enough for us to eat (Exo. 16:14; John 6:12).
Many times we are not fine people; our natural kindness, humility, and gentleness are rough and unbalanced. When we eat Christ as our food, enjoying His word as our life supply, we will become balanced, fine, and even.
Manna is round, indicating that, as our food, Christ is eternal, perfect, and full,without shortage or defect (John 8:58). Christ is our eternal food – He has no end or beginning, He is eternal, and we can eat Him!
Manna is white, showing that Christ is clean and pure, without any mixture (Exo. 16:31; Psa. 12:6; 119:140; 2 Cor. 11:3b). We may be clean but we definitely are not white; many times there’s a stain on us, even if it is the stain of our natural man.
When we eat the Lord daily in His word as the heavenly manna, we will undergo a process of purification that makes us more and more pure, saving us from all kinds of mixture.
As we feed on Christ daily, we will eventually become simple and pure, not complicated but single in heart and pure in character. Also, we become white – without any stain; the more we take Christ as our life supply, the more our natural color is eliminated and we become white, pure, and simple.
Manna is like frost, signifying that, as we eat the Lord, He not only cools and refreshes us, but He also kills the negative elements within us (Exo. 16:14; Prov. 17:27).
Many are too hot and zealous, while others are feverish over the things of the world such as entertainment and technology; by eating Christ as the heavenly manna, we are cooled down, and all the negative things are killed within us.
Manna is like coriander seed, indicating that Christ is full of life that grows in us and multiplies (Num. 11:7; Luke 8:11). Hallelujah, Christ is the seed of life, and by eating Him we are filled with life and become living.
Lord Jesus, we want to eat You as the heavenly manna every morning. We take You in as our food, our life supply, every day so that we may live the Christian life and become inwardly reconstituted with Your element. Amen, Lord, we want to eat You as the small One, the One who didn’t make a display of Your greatness but preferred to be small in the eyes of man. We take You in, Lord, as the One who is even and balanced, the One who became small enough for us to eat. You are the eternal, perfect, and full One, the One without any shortage or defect; we exercise our spirit to eat You and take You in. As we eat You, Lord, we are refreshed and cooled down, and all the negative things within us are killed. Hallelujah for Christ as the reality of manna to be our daily supply!
Eating Christ as the Heavenly Manna: He is Solid, Bright, Tasty, and Good for Nourishment
Another characteristic of manna was that it was solid; this is implied in the fact that the people ground it between two millstones or beat it in a mortar, and then they boiled it in pots (Num. 11:8).
This signifies that, after gathering Christ as manna, we must prepare Him for our eating by “grinding, beating, and boiling” Him in the situations and circumstances of our daily living (see 2 Cor. 1:4; Eph. 6:18).
On one hand the Lord gives Himself to us as our food, the reality of manna, and on the other, He arranges the environment for us to “process and digest” the Christ whom we have eaten, so that He may be assimilated into our inward being and thus reconstitute us with the element of God.
We need not only to eat Christ as the heavenly manna but also accept the environment arranged by God in a sovereign way to digest and assimilate Christ. Manna’s appearance was like that of bdellium; this indicates the brightness and transparency of Christ (Num. 11:7; Rev. 4:6, 8; Ezek. 1:18).
When we eat Christ, we become bright and transparent; in ourselves we are opaque and not transparent, but as we eat this One, He reconstitutes us and makes us as bright and as transparent as He is.
Eating Christ daily as the heavenly food will cause us to let Him shine in us and through us, and others will see Christ in us.
Manna’s taste is like that of cakes baked in oil, signifying the fragrance of the Holy Spirit in the taste of Christ (Exo. 16:31; Psa. 92:10). Oh, the Lord was anointed with fresh oil, and He became like tasty food for us to eat and enjoy!
When we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord in the morning by coming to His word and praying over His word, we enjoy this wonderful, tasty, fragrant one, and we ourselves are anointed with oil and bear the fragrance of the Holy Spirit.
Manna’s taste was like that of wafers made with honey, signifying the sweetness of the taste of Christ (Exo. 16:31; Psa. 119:103). Amen, when we eat Christ in His word, His words are sweet to our taste – even like wafers made with honey.
When we pray-read the word of God, we enjoy the sweetness of the taste of Christ.
Manna is good for making cakes, indicating that Christ is like fine cakes good for nourishment (Num. 11:8; 1 Tim. 4:6).
On one hand we need to eat Christ as the solid, bright, tasty, and nourishing One, for He is the heavenly manna; on the other hand, we need to lay these things before others and thus be a good minister of Christ Jesus, being nourished with the words of the faith and of the good teaching which we closely follow.
Oh, what a rich Christ we have! And we can enjoy Him day by day, especially in the morning, as our daily manna, to be both nourished, supplied, reconstituted, and fed, and to have anything negative dealt with and eliminated!
Lord Jesus, we take You in as the heavenly manna, the One who is solid and nourishing for our inner being. Amen, Lord, we also accept the environment that You have arranged for the Christ we have eaten to be digested and assimilated into our inner being. Your words are sweet to our taste, Lord, even sweeter than honey to our mouth. We come to You every morning to feed on You as our heavenly manna, so that we may be constituted with You and become bright and transparent. It is only by eating You and being nourished with the words of God that we can also minister You as life to others for their nourishment.
This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Cristos ca mana cerească este mic, echilibrat, revigorant, solid, deschis și gustos!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 435-440 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Numbers (2), week 3, The Change of our Diet to the Heavenly Christ as the Reality of the Heavenly Manna, so that we may be Reconstituted with Christ to become God’s dwelling Place.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Between the morning dew / And cold of winter snow, / This manna too is frost which kills / Things negative below. / How pure and white and clean; / In type our Christ we see; / As we digest His element, / He washes inwardly. / Manna with honey is; / Two lives this type does show; / One for the Lord’s redemptive work, / And one His life to grow. (Hymns #1147)
# Teach me to exercise my spirit, Lord, / Thy Word to study, so to contact Thee, / That Thou, the living Word, with Scripture, too, / As one my daily manna e’er may be. (Hymns #801)
# Now to enjoy Thee I come to Thy Word, / On Thee to feed till my hunger is o’er. / Now in my spirit I turn unto Thee, / Of Thee to drink till I’m thirsty no more. (Hymns #811)
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