eating Jesus
This is the fourth in a series of five posts about How to Enjoy God, the book we are reading together as club this break. For more on the book, or to read for yourself, click here. Johanna’s, Philip’s, and Sarah’s posts are in our archives. Check back each Saturday for another report from our blog team.

Eating and drinking are universal. We eat for many reasons, but all else aside we eat because we have to. With this in mind, it is interesting to see the constant theme of eating and drinking displayed throughout the Bible. In Genesis 2, God did not demand worship or service from Adam. On the contrary, God presented Himself to man as food in the form of the tree of life.

Even though food is a necessity and is vital to sustain life, it can also be enjoyable to eat. While physical food satisfies a need within us to there is a deeper need within us. When we acknowledge this need, we will realize that the Lord desires for us to enjoy Him by taking Him as our real spiritual food and drink. Contacting the Lord in our spirit is the practical way to experience eating and drinking Him.

Similar to how food is digested within our bodies, everything the Lord is becomes our constitution when we continually feed on Him. In order to express qualities such as patience and love, we do not need to outwardly practice changing ourselves. Instead of focusing on work and behavior, we can take God in through eating and drinking.

Approaching time with the Lord in light of this principle has changed my concept of what it means to eat and drink. From the Lord’s perspective, everything that is temporary and visible is not real because it cannot satisfy us eternally. However, Jesus reveals that those who drink of His living water will never thirst again (John 4:13-14). The life-sustaining aspect of physical food and drink is merely a representation of the Lord’s everlasting desire to be our source of life.

The idea that the Lord simply wants us to eat of Him can be hard to fathom. Our natural concept is that since God is holy, we have to muster up our own holiness just to be in the same room with Him. To combat these thoughts that tell us we are unworthy of enjoying Him, we can be honest with Him through prayer. When we do this, our prayer becomes our spiritual breathing. Breathing out our sorrow and sin and breathing in God enables the Lord to become a life source that we can continually partake of.

I found that regarding God in this way helps me experience more of who He is. Instead of approaching God as someone to pray to in times of trouble, we should realize that the Lord supports us as believers by living and walking through us when we come to Him in this way. Learning to depend on the Lord for strength and guidance is no longer an “emergency prayer”, but the normal result of eating the Lord.

Although breaking down our human concept of what we should be “doing for God” may take some time and practice, understanding the Lord’s desire to supply us with Himself is paramount. God has made Himself available to us. His body has already been broken for us and His blood has already been shed. Now, God’s will is for us to simply eat and drink of Himself.

By: M.Cannizzo

Mikaela Cannizzo
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