ATTRIBUTES—-
OUR ULTIMATE
SATISFACTION
WHO IS GOD? OUR ULTIMATE SATISFACTION
If you were starving, to what extreme would you go to eat and have a satisfied stomach? Our stomachs can drive our decisions, our feelings, and our schedules. Jesus understood that we as humans have an impulse to survive and that we need to live off food. He uses this to paint an essential and powerful picture of our dependence on something for survival. By calling Himself “the bread of life” (John 6:35), Jesus shows us who He is, what we need, and how He is the answer to our need. Everyone has two kinds of hunger—physical and spiritual—and both must be fed. Jesus declares Himself to be the Bread of Life, who satisfies us daily and for eternity. He is our ultimate satisfaction.
WHO AM I? EMPTY & NEEDING SATISFACTION
In His message in John 6, Jesus springs a new idea on the crowd listening and on us: We have two kinds of hunger. We’re very familiar with physical hunger, which needs to be met with food. But we also have a spiritual hunger, and that need is even more important than our physical need to eat. If you don’t eat food, you die. Similarly, if you don’t have food for your spiritual stomach, then you will starve and die eternally. Jesus was identifying a need we all have that we may not even know about. This deeper need is to eat eternal food from God that will give us life forever. And what is this food? Jesus Himself—the eternal Bread of Life, who can fully satisfy our spiritual stomachs forever.
WHAT DO I DO? BELIEVE & EAT ETERNALLY
Eating isn’t too hard—even toddlers understand how to pick up food and put it in their mouths. But how do we eat the eternal food of Jesus? He says that we never have to be spiritually hungry or thirsty again (John 6:35)—but how? By believing in Him. Some say that seeing is believing, but in this case, believing is eating. When we believe in Jesus Christ, we are “eating” His claim of being the Savior. He is the only one who can give us the food to live forever. Only God is eternal; no human can us give this gift. And if we reject Jesus as the food of eternal life, we will die.
Jesus has revealed His identity as the Savior who came to feed our deep hunger for eternal life. He Himself is the answer to our need and the only one who can rescue us from the death we all face. By believing in Him, we can be satisfied, not with temporary things that will pass away, but with the eternal identity He gives us that will last forever.