Crucified Hearts

Jesus taught us to pray like this: “Our Father in heaven…Give us this day our daily bread”. Matthew 6:9,11

What food is to the body so is the Word of God to the soul. As often as we must eat our food we must consume the word of God to have His Life in ourselves.

Christ himself is the Word of God made flesh (John:1-5,14). We are nourished in Him when we are nourished on the Word. Ignorance of the Word is ignorance of him. To misunderstand the Word is to misunderstand God, for Jesus Christ, the Word, is from God and is God. Neglect of the word is neglect of Him.

Do we want Jesus to be with us every moment of the day? Then we will want nothing more, nothing greater than to abide in Him in His Word.

As Jesus said, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
— Matthew 4:4

Jesus spoke of himself as the Bread of Life, Bread that was baked in the furnace affliction, Bread that we must eat to have His life in ourselves.

Just as in the days of Moses God gave them mana to eat, manna from heaven, so this manna is a type of Christ whom we must partake of daily if we would live the Life, the only Life, worth living.

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
— John 6:48-57

The Apostle Peter later said this to the Christians who had been dispersed by persecution throughout Asia…

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”
— 1 Peter 1:22-25

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation⁠— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
— 1 Peter 2:2-3

Only a few hours before his condemnation and crucifixion Jesus gave his disciples this life-saving instruction:

“I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love”.
— John 15:5-10

The Apostle Paul had this to say about his ministry of the Word, the ministry of reconciliation proclaimed to the world, the word of reconciliation in the gospel, for whom he had been commissioned as an ambassador by Christ:

“Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
— 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

As the Word of God lives in us, Christ comes to the world through us, we who through the word are like salt that preserves life, like light that shines on the pathway of those surrounded by darkness.

The Word was made flesh to dwell among us; therefore, the church is the body of Christ to be consumed in the world as all who would live feed upon the living Word of God. It just as it was with Christ, so it is with the church as the body of Christ who lives in the resurrecting power of God.

“You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”
— 2 Corinthians 2:14-17