[Darris McNeely] If you’ve ever looked at a piece of unleavened bread, it’s very thin, almost flat. Sometimes it doesn’t look very appetizing. They can be made up to taste pretty good by someone who knows what they’re doing – peanut butter’s really good on them – but what we eat during the Days of Unleavened Bread teach us some profound lessons for us. In this part 2 of the Bread of Life, we’re focusing off of Christ’s statement in Matthew chapter 4 where He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). As we bring that into the concept or into the teaching of the Days of Unleavened Bread, there is an even deeper understanding and lesson for us to learn, and it really comes from some other teaching that Jesus gave in John chapter 6, in a very long passage and section of Scripture. He begins in about – we can begin in verse 33 and move through this passage. Jesus had just performed a miracle of multiplying loaves of bread and fishes for a multitude of people, and then He used that as an object lesson to His disciples to teach an even deeper spiritual point for their lives. They had a hard time understanding it, but what He was teaching them is that He was that bread. He said, “For the bread that God is He which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” And He said, “I am the bread of life”. A bread of life. This is what Jesus said that He was. He said, “He that comes to Me, he shall never hunger. He that believes on Me shall never thirst.” Again, He repeated, “I am that bread of life that comes down from heaven, and that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came from heaven. If any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever. The bread that I give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” This goes on through verse 51. A very deep teaching (John 6:32-51).

As we observe the Days of Unleavened Bread, as we eat unleavened bread for that seven-day festival, during that period according to God’s teaching, we are eating that bread, which as we showed from the first installment in this, is really looking at the life of Jesus Christ. Paul said in Galatians 2:20 that, “The life that I now live, I live by the faith in the Son of God in me”. Jesus was saying in this passage in John 6 that He is the bread of life, and to eat His flesh and eat that symbolic bread then is to picture the spiritual life of God within us through the Holy Spirit. And that comes about as a result of repentance and faith and baptism, the laying on of hands, accepting that sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Passover lamb, and endeavoring intent with full commitment to overcome sin, to put that out of our lives, and to put the life of Christ within us to make sure that that happens, and that that sin stays out of our lives. Do that, Jesus said, and you will live forever.

I’ve been keeping this biblical Festival of Unleavened Bread for more than five decades in my life, and every year I learn a whole lot more as I go through it and I observe it and reflect upon the spiritual teaching that God has for all of us. The bread of life – it’s a very critical, important part of Christ’s teaching. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Make sure that you are eating that bread of life, the word of God, and that Christ’s life is in you.

That’s BT Daily. Join us next time.