Food

We all understand how important food is to our lives. In our culture, especially, food has become a focal point. Television networks have been created around food. Even children, who used to desire to become policemen, firemen, or doctors, now may answer that their dream is to become a chef. What has caused this huge interest and focus upon food in our generation? Perhaps the answer can be found in a spiritual need. As great a role as natural food plays in our lives, the role of spiritual food is even greater. The topic is very interesting.
Jesus often described Himself as our food:
"Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, 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 eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats 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 he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven- not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."  Jn. 6:53-58
"I am the bread of life...I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."   Jn. 6:48-51
At the Passover table, which He shared with His disciples, He again said, "Take (the bread), eat; this is My body....Drink from it (the cup of wine) all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."  
                                                                                Mt. 26:26-28 (1 Cor. 11:24-25).
Jesus emphasized the point of being the food that will yield eternal life to us. He was so emphatic and graphic about it, that, at the time, many of His disciples grumbled and complained about the nature of His "strange" declaration (Jn. 6:60-61). There is still debate in the Church over the meaning of His words spoken here-are they to be taken literally, or are they meant as spiritually symbolic? Perhaps we can all agree on one general thought. When the first Adam turned his back on God, and chose to believe instead the lying evil embodied by the serpent, God then said to the serpent, "..On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life." (Gen. 3:14). The dust the serpent would eat is the dust to which Adam would return upon his death (Gen. 3:19, Ps. 104:29). Adam literally became the serpent's food. In doing what he did, Adam also doomed all of us to the same fate. God did not create us to become food for evil powers. Jesus, the second Adam, offers Himself as the spiritual food of life on behalf of all of us. We can agree that Jesus is the Bread of Life that delivered us from the power of death. He is our primary spiritual food. Eat of Him, and we will not be eaten, so to speak.
There are other interesting references to spiritual food which God has provided to us to eat:
"For God is my King from of old (before, ancient, eternal, beforetime), working (ordaining) salvation ("yeshua" salvation) in the midst (enter into, bring near, approach, draw near) of the earth. You divided (break asunder, make void, come to naught, break to bits) the sea (to roar) by your strength; You broke the heads (captains, rulers, chiefs, company) of the sea serpents (snake, hissing, whispering, dragon, enchanter, divination, fortune telling) in the waters (waters and water springs for washing, watering, and refreshing, instead become waters of danger, violence and things that pass away, rather than the eternal). You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, and gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness."  Psalm 74:12-14
Some consider the creature "Leviathan" referred to above to be a natural creature, such as a crocodile, or a whale, or even a dinosaur, and it may be. Job 41 describes it as a fierce-some creature, whether spiritual or natural, certainly too great a creature for man to force to his will, or overcome by his own strength. Isaiah gives us a picture of Leviathan as a spiritual creature:
"In that day the LORD with His severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan the fleeing (fugitive, escaped, departed from its place, piercing, cutting through, breaking in) serpent (same as above-snake, hissing, whispering, enchanter, divination, fortune telling), Leviathan that twisted (tortuous, bent, twisted, perverted, wrong) serpent; and He will slay the reptile (serpent) that is in the sea,"  Isa. 27:1
As the verses in Psalm 74 tell us, these evil spiritual creatures are meant to become our food. We are not meant to become their food.
David describes a table that his Shepherd, the LORD, has prepared for him:
"You prepare (furnish, ordain, direct, array, arrange, set and lay in order) a table (king's table, stretch out, let loose, cast out, send away) before me in the presence of my enemies (enemy, distress, bind up, afflict, adversary, pangs, trouble, shut up, straits, press hard upon) ; You anoint (fatten, prosperity, become fat) my head with oil (fat, fatness, a feast of fat things), my cup runs over (wealth, abundance, satiated, satisfied, saturated)."  Ps. 23:5
David ate a spiritual banquet in the face of his spiritual enemies.
The bread of the tabernacle (Ex. 25:30) that David ate (1 Sam. 21:6, Mt. 12:4, Mk. 2:26, Lk. 6:4) and the food that the Prov. 31 woman, who is a very interesting person to study in depth, provides to her household (Prov. 31:14), is not just a natural bread. It is "lechem", which is also the tabernacle shewbread. It comes from the root word, lacham, which means "to fight, make war, eat, overcome, devour, prevail). This could very well be the same Bread of Life that Jesus defined as being Himself. The Prov. 31 woman "brings" (includes the meaning "besiege") the shewbread to her table from afar (distant place, be removed, thrust away, repel). How does she obtain this spiritual food for her family? Verse 15 tells us that she rises, meaning "proven, fulfilled, persist, be fixed, stand, perform, confirm, continue", while it is yet night, providing (devote, consecrate, dedicate, yield produce, report, utter, stretch out) food (meat: prey, something torn in pieces, spoil) for her household (family, including descendants, to build, establish, make permanent), and even a portion (decree, statute, ordinance, law, bounds, commandment, prescribed limit, lawgiver, engrave, inscribe, mark out) for her servants (root: youth, overthrow, shake to and from, up and down, shake oneself, tumble).
This description from Proverbs 31, gives us a clearer idea of how we attain, are given, our spiritual food. In these verses, we can see that as we confirm and continue, as we stand fast, remain fixed, persist in our faith, and in the truth of God, spiritual food is provided for us, as God defeats His enemies. Even in darkness, we are to remain under the protective covering and shadow of the Most High. We devote and consecrate ourselves, and are not moved, nor compromised. The spiritual food that we eat, builds an eternal household, continuing to future generations. As we rely upon, and eat, this spiritual food provided by God, we become lawgivers who engrave, set and decree the commandments, limits and statutes of God to all creation, including evil spiritual adversaries. This benefits not only our own households, but also those who are depending upon us because they are vulnerable, those who are likely to be shaken, tossed, to stumble and fall.
Especially because of the times in which we live, it could very well be that the reason for our unusual interest in natural food can be found in the importance and depth of meaning in our seldom considered spiritual food.

Our Father has provided us with spiritual food.

"Bread of Heaven"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjVgm9-XTqQ

"The Body and the Blood"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXzMrfzAaUk