John 6:34 They said therefore to Him, Lord, give us this bread always.
The strongest and strangest sentence in the entire Bible is [John 6] verse 57. “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” The Lord who is the Almighty God and the Creator of the universe exhorts us to eat Him. Man could never have such a thought. If this word had not been spoken by the Lord, I believe that none of us would possess enough courage to say that we must eat the Lord. Of course, we can say that we must worship and fear the Lord, trust and obey the Lord, pray and work for the Lord. We may use many other verbs to explain what we must do for the Lord, but we would be afraid to think that we should eat Him.
We all must eat three meals a day in order to live. In other words, we live by eating. Likewise, we must eat the Lord so that we can live by the Lord. The most important point in the whole chapter of John 6 is that the Lord is our food, the bread of life. To eat Him is not a once-for-all matter. It is a daily matter and even a moment by moment experience of the Lord. Whether in the East or West, people continually eat so that they may live. So, we all must also contact the Lord and eat Him. We are not merely weak people, but hungry people who need the Lord as our life supply.
The Lord is edible because He is the bread of life. He is as edible as a piece of bread. We must exercise our spirit to feed on Him as the Word and as the Spirit. Then we shall receive Him into us, digest Him, experience Him, and apply Him moment by moment. This is all—there is nothing else. We must forget about our doing and our working and learn to eat Christ and live by what we have eaten of Him. This is the divine way of life for our daily living. (Witness Lee, Life-study of John, msg. 16)
Verses from Recovery Version Bible. Picture Credit: AC. L.
