I love bread. All kinds…bagels, croissants, baguettes, Artesian, French, Italian. I’ve even eaten salads where my favorite ingredient was the croutons! Thankfully, I don’t have a gluten allergy, but clearly the consumption of too much bread is neither healthy nor wise. We need more to sustain us than Panera’s finest.

Scripture warns us that man “does not live on bread alone.” We were created for more than mere subsistence. We were made to experience life “in abundance.” Settling for bread alone yields spiritual malnourishment and unfulfilled potential. Half-baked lives.

When Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, Jesus quoted this passage from Deuteronomy to show that man’s needs run much deeper than physical existence. The miracle of the Hebrews' survival in the desert was not just the manna (“bread from heaven”), but that God provided it. In the desert, they learned about a God whose word resulted not only in manna, quail and water, but in laws they could live by. God taught them how to depend on Him alone, a dependence that would win them a land and an identity they could never have achieved on their own.

So how about you? Have you yet come to the place of recognizing that fulfillment comes in God alone, not bread alone? Don’t settle for anything less than a relationship that stretches beyond your here-and-now needs. Be thankful for whatever kind of bread God has blessed you with, but even more that He alone knows and provides what you truly need.

Father, please help me see that all I really need is you. Help me not to get trapped by lesser goals, but to look always to you to meet my needs. Amen.

Go Deeper ― Take some time to consider the needs in your life. Thank God for his provision in meeting those needs…past, present and future.



Tags: dependence Deuteronomy 8
Photo Credit: Steven Van Loy