What Jesus Actually Meant by "I am the Bread of Life" | Crossroads Church

You know, there's a lot of opinions, assumptions, and ideas out there about who Jesus is. Culture has opinions. Religion has opinions. Even people who don't follow him usually still have some kind of perspective on him. My name is Miko, the prison director here at Crossroads Church, and over the next several weeks, we're going to take a deeper look at the I Am statements of Jesus. The moments where Jesus, out of his own mouth, tells us exactly who he is. And I'm going to be up front with you. He said what he said. These aren't just inspirational sayings or vague religious metaphors. These are bold, personal, and at times controversial claims about the identity of Jesus and the kind of life he's inviting us into. The people hearing him at the time, they understood the weight of what he was claiming. Some were drawn in. Others were offended by it. Some were just confused. Some worshipped him because of it. Others wanted him killed because of it. No matter where you're coming from spiritually, our hope is that you wouldn't just react to these statements. That you actually wrestle with them. Sit with them. Ask honest questions about them. Because the truth of the matter is, his words are not without consequence for any of us. Whether you believe Jesus was the son of God, a wise teacher, a prophet, or you're still just figuring it out. There's no denying that his words have shaped human history unlike anyone else's in the world and continue to confront, challenge, and draw people in today. Why? Maybe there's a deeper question. Maybe the question isn't, what did Jesus say? Maybe it's, what did Jesus mean by what he said? What did the people, the culture of his time understand him to mean? Does that still mean who you are today?

That's lock in. In the New Testament, in the gospel according to John, this is a firsthand biography of Jesus by one of his closest friends. In it, John records seven iconic, I am statements that Jesus made. Seven metaphors, seven self-portraits of the living God. This week, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Here's how it goes in the book of John chapter six. Bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And they said to him, sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you've seen me and yet do not believe. All that the father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Well, hey, how are you? My name is Kyle. You never met before. And if we had met before, my name is actually still Kyle. It's kind of always Kyle. Glad that you're with us today for Jesus exhibits seven self-portraits of the son of God. You know, Jesus is probably the most talked about person in human history. Means there's a lot of hot takes out there about him, who he is, what he's really like. In the Bible alone, there are 198 different names and titles for Jesus. And all of them are accurate. All of them are helpful. And yet seven stand above the rest. These seven I am statements from the book of John. Why? Because they're what Jesus said about himself. Self-portraits.

Now, you can learn a lot about an artist when you study their work. I would do this in high school. And in high school, I actually wanted to become an oil painter. That was the course of my life for a number of years. Until the point where my very kind father very gently asked me a couple of important questions. Like, Kyle, one day, do you want to be able to afford to eat? And I was like, I would like that. Would you like to one day live inside of a house? I would. I would like to live inside of a house. That sounds great. So I became a designer instead. We lived in Philadelphia in high school. And so I'd go to the amazing Philadelphia Art Museum. And there was a Vincent Van Gogh gallery. I love Van Gogh. Love his work. And I would study his paintings for a long, long time. Which, by the way, pro tip for any guys in high school or in college. Take her to the art museum for a winning date. It's awesome. It's free. And you'll look like a genius. You just go to a painting. She pauses in front of the painting. And you just rub your chin and say, wow, what depth. And she'll think you're so smart. It's great. Now, when you study the paintings of an artist, you can learn a lot about them.

But nothing compares to a self-portrait. That's where you really climb. inside of how they see the world and how they see themselves. One of the most famous self-portraits in world history is actually this one right here of Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh had gone through a hard time in his life, literally had a mental breakdown, and to the point where he cut off his own ear, literally sliced off his ear, true story, and he painted this painting one month later. Now, what's amazing about it and why I think it's resonated through history is because it's real and it's honest. It shows his scars in everything. It's actually why people respond to Crossroads so much. It's what first attracted me to Crossroads 20-some years ago. It was a place where you could be real, like you could show your scars. We've been expanding and doing different stuff you might've heard about. We did a pop-up in Detroit and Indianapolis. We had a run journey in Bolivia. 16 people down there got baptized. Crazy stuff is happening, amazing. And we ask people when we go to these places, why are you part of this church? It's really hard to be part of Crossroads from far away. Why do you wanna be part of this church? And no matter whether it's Bolivia or Detroit,

we hear the same thing. It's two things. It's one, you're a church that does stuff. You get outside your walls, you serve the cities you're in, you try to change the world. And then two, it's a place to be real, a place you can show your scars in everything. And this is Jesus. This is Jesus specifically with this portrait we're looking at today, by the way. Jesus wants us to see explicitly his scars with the bread of life. This is where we're starting, John 6, 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. And he who believes in me shall never thirst. It's a pretty incredible promise, you know, never hunger. Now that doesn't mean physical food. Obviously Jesus isn't like, my arm is made of breadsticks. Go ahead and take a bite. That's not what he's saying. He's saying never hunger for the things that you're hunger for, approval, satisfaction, meaning, affirmation, security, those deeper spiritual hunger needs. He says, if you come to me, you'll never hunger for them again. What that means is that this message, the bread of life is for anybody

who feels tired, weary, worn out. Anybody who feels like they're out of gas in their life, this message is for you. And I know whether you're young or old, it doesn't matter. I know if you're in the room, if you're watching online, you were tired this week. Something about this time of year. I think we think it's like, you know, May is the, it's spring and there's flowers and everything's awesome. No, not my May. My May is full of like getting the kids through their final tests at school, soccer practices, baseball. We just cram extra stuff in it. We got sixth grade graduations to go to now. Why? Why do we do that? There's no diploma. It's not a graduation. Kindergarten, grad, we don't need this people. What are we doing to ourselves? Amen, let's go home. God, thank you. Like if you're in high school, you have exams, college exams, it doesn't matter. We're just tired. We're worn out, which is why we need the bread of life. Promise of provision every single day. Now this message can either be intellectual for you,

can be kind of a brain tickler and interesting thoughts about God, or it can be personal. And my prayer for you is that it's personal. And for it to be personal, you have to walk up to the portrait, honest about where you are, honest about why you're tired, honest about the scars that you carry too. Before we go further, let's pray together. God, thank you so much for being a God who wants to show us the real you and wants to offer us the ability to never be hungry again. I hope to see you scars and all today. Amen, amen. Well, like you heard earlier from your community pastor, when Jesus makes these statements of I am, he's not just relating metaphors. He's saying, I am God himself. In fact, in John 8, 58, Jesus says before Abraham was, I am, uses the name of God and says, before this guy who lived a couple thousand years ago was alive, I was alive. In other words, I'm eternal, I am God. When you say I am, you better be able to back it up. This past week, I was in Indianapolis with my son for a baseball tournament. He's 14, his team was playing over there, which pro tip to any parents out there younger than me, do not let your kid play baseball.

Do not do that, it's a bad idea. Any other sport's better. Soccer games, hour long, it's awesome. Volleyball, like 32 minutes in and out, incredible. Baseball games last like four days. It just, just goes. So we're in Indianapolis for this baseball tournament. The team hotel was the best Western in Fishers. Indiana, and I don't mean to throw shade, but guys, best is generous, okay? It's more like a Western, is what it was. And our games got rained out Saturday morning, they're pushing later in the day, so we had nothing to do. So, like 9.30 in the morning Saturday, everybody's in the lobby of the team hotel playing Mafia, okay, playing a game that's kind of loud. Twice the manager comes over, asks us to be quiet, doesn't work. And so, eventually he stands up and he goes, the lobby is closed. We're like, the lobby is closed, and it's like 9.30 in the morning. And so, one of the parents goes, where are the lobby hours posted? And the guy goes, and I said, okay, well, what are the hours? And he says, I am the hours, I am the hours. I was like, whoa, you know, I think he's trying to express his authority in that moment, and that's what Jesus is doing. When he says, I am, he's trying to say, hey, I have authority in this. This is who I am, I am. Now, the point though, isn't just to say, I'm God. That's great, but it's not like, I'm God, good for you. It's that we would understand who he is, and so we could relate to him differently. In fact, John tells us the point of these statements in chapter 20, verse 31. He says, but these are written, these I am statements, that one, you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that two,

by believing, you might have life in his name. These portraits are interesting ideas. Oh, look, theology, well, he's the bread of life, cool. No, it's that you would believe that Jesus is your Messiah, your Redeemer, the one who can satisfy your hunger, and not just that, but that you would have practical daily life in his name. In today, in the bread of life's name. Means there's two portraits in every single one of these. There's a portrait of the gospel, a picture of the gospel, and there's a portrait that gives us instructions for daily living or truly living, two in one. We're going to start with the first portrait, the portrait of the gospel. I would title this portrait, broken bread, the broken bread of life. Now, Messiah means Redeemer, or Savior, or just fixer, the one who would fix what's broken between God and humanity. And if you go all the way back to the moment where that relationship broke between God and humanity, you'll find bread. Go back to Genesis 3, it's the story of Adam and Eve, and that might trip you up a little bit, I'll just help you out a little bit. Adam means humankind, Eve means life. And so their story is literally the story of the beginning of human life, is what it is. And at the beginning of human life, God makes a garden, and there's trees, and there's fruit, and all you got to do to get your hunger satisfied is walk up to a tree, pick a piece of fruit, take a bite of it. It's awesome. But God says, there's one tree I don't want you to touch. And Adam and Eve respond just like your toddler, they're like, all we want to do is touch it. And they go over, and they do, and everything breaks. Everything breaks.

And I want you to listen to God's response in that moment to the brokenness that now exists in the world. Genesis 3, verse 17. God says, cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread. So you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. In this moment of breaking, God invents bread. It's crazy. And I want you to notice, he didn't make a bread tree. That'd have been awesome, by the way. We can say that out. Bread trees would be... I'd have a whole orchard if they were bread trees. I'd have a pretzel stick tree. I'd have a garlic naan tree. I'd have a King's Hawaiian roll tree. Turn to your neighbor real quick and tell them, if there was a bread tree, what kind of bread tree would you most want? What would you want? Hawaiian roll tree? Croissants? Ezekiel bread tree, I'm hearing. No, I would not do that. I eat Ezekiel bread. Don't do that. That's a bad way to play. You gluten-free people are like, this is making me very sad right now. I understand.

I understand. God doesn't make a bread tree. Instead, God changes how we'd get our hunger satisfied. Again, before this moment, you got your hunger satisfied directly from what God provided. Picked a piece of fruit, ate it. God made the fruit. You picked the fruit, you ate the fruit. Now, now you got to work. God says, now, from this place of brokenness, you have to work to try to satisfy your hunger, out of toil, the sweat of your brow, and oh, by the way, it's not gonna work, you're gonna die. That's the point of bread. See, bread in the beginning is not the bread of life. It's the bread of death. It was a daily reminder to people every single day that no matter how hard they worked, they could not satisfy their hunger and they would end in death. I'd be like, man, that's kind of brutal of God. Making bread as a symbol of death, that's, yeesh. Yeah, but it's also clear and it's honest and it's accurate, not just back then, but today, by the way. You know, modern mental health experts are all over this trend right now. This idea that no matter how hard you work, you can never, ever satisfy your truest hungers, all over the place.

And there's people out there that want you to believe that the Bible's like these old fairy tales, outdated, nothing to do with modern life. No, not true. Even in the most ancient of stories, like Adam and Eve, there is deep truth that resonates across the millennia and is still applicable today, today. The leading experts right now, mental health and satisfaction, they say the same thing. Our work can never satisfy our true hunger. And not just that, our work oftentimes originates from a place of brokenness. This is actually particularly true amongst high achievers, which I think we're a church of high achievers. If you're not into like doing stuff, you're not gonna like crossroads because we're gonna push you to do stuff. Join a group, serve, give, go. We're the church that gets out of our seats and runs after people. Church of high achievers. But see, oftentimes in our lives, that thing that drive to achieve comes from a place of brokenness. You wonder, am I really enough? And so you set out to work really hard to prove it. Do I really belong? So you set out really hard to prove that you do belong. Am I really valued? So you set out really hard to show that you are valuable.

I experienced this in my life. I've experienced it for sure. I moved a lot as a kid. I was the new kid in school in second grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, again in ninth grade. College, I moved to a place hundreds of miles away. State never lived in, culture never been in. First job, Greenville, South Carolina. I didn't know anybody there. Cincinnati moved here, didn't know anybody here. My first job at Crossroads, I was the only person on my team. And so I can wonder sometimes, do I really belong? And you work out of that place. I can be very tempted. I will fill that need. I'll fill that hunger in myself to know that I do belong. I'll show them that I am needed, that I am valuable, that I do belong. I'll prove it. I'll work and work and work and try to satisfy it. But no matter how hard you do, you can never satisfy your own hunger. You can't do it. You can't. Now, this is a thing that experts are calling the Stryber's curse. In fact, there's a guy out there. He's literally recognized as the world's leading expert on happiness from Harvard.

His name is Arthur C. Brooks. And he calls it the Stryber's curse. The curse is that no matter how hard you work, the results have greatly diminishing returns in terms of satisfaction in your life. It works like this. The promotion that you worked so hard for that you got last month, this month, just feels like another job. That house that you were so pumped to move into in the neighborhood and you worked hard and it's a bigger mortgage. You took it on and it felt like, man, I'm a million bucks. I'm worth something because I got that house you bought last year. This year just feels like an average home. Right? The accomplishment that you went so hard after, month after month, now it just feels like a normal Thursday. We have these dramatically diminishing returns and we try to satisfy our own hunger. And yet we still go after it. We still go after it. In his book, From Strength to Strength, Arthur Brooks wrote this. He said, what I found was a hidden source of anguish that wasn't just widespread but nearly universal among people who've done well in their careers. I came to call this the Stryber's curse.

People who strive to be excellent in what they do often wind up finding their inevitable decline terrifying, their successes increasingly unsatisfying and their relationships lacking. Don't miss it. He calls it a curse. Best word this guy could use to describe this, it's a curse. That's what Genesis three says. Cursed is the ground for your sake. Coil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread and it will not satisfy you, it won't. Listen, friend, no matter how hard you work, no matter what result you get, no matter what fancy title gets put on the nameplate in the front of your desk or in your office door, doesn't matter, you cannot validate yourself. You cannot give yourself approval. You cannot give yourself affirmation. You cannot give yourself safety. You cannot give yourself security, no matter what. You can't do it, you can't. There are 3,000 years before Arthur C. Brooks came along, there was this guy named King Solomon. He was recognized as the wisest guy in the world and he wrote these words that became scripture. Ecclesiastes 2.11, then I considered all that my hands had done in the toil I had expended in doing it and behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind.

All was vanity. That's the curse we gotta understand. Out of our brokenness, we work to satisfy our hunger and it will not happen. That's the bad news and that's the brokenness. Remember, Jesus didn't say that he's the bread of life to reinforce this old thing. He didn't say he's the bread of death. He said he's the bread of life. He changes the narrative because he's the Messiah. The Messiah comes and fixes what was broken. And so the Messiah comes around, he says, I'm gonna take this daily reminder of death, bread, and I'm gonna turn it into a daily reminder of life. Life in me. And bread is the picture of how he does it. Now, our problem with bread is that when we think of bread, we start here. You know, we do have a bread tree, it's called Kroger. And we go, we pick off the bread we want from the shelf or we do our click list and the guy puts it in our trunk and we just hope when he puts it in our trunk, he doesn't put the eggs on top, right? That's what most of the bread I get from Kroger looks like, it's kind of like this. You know, it's like, okay, well, what are we working with? We got something in there. This is our start with bread. But for the people Jesus was talking to, when he says, I'm the bread of life,

their portrait, their picture, didn't start with pre-sliced bread in a plastic bag. Their picture started with the work of bread, the process of bread. Because every day, guess what they did? They made bread. Literally every first century family, every day labored and worked to make bread. But what was that process of bread making? Well, for bread to exist, you have to have a kernel of wheat that has to fall from its position on high into the ground where it must die. And when it dies, it would produce life. A field of wheat would grow up. And when that field was ripe and when it was ready to be harvested, they would walk out with scythes, with these knives, and they would cut down the stalks of wheat. And when those stalks were all down on the ground, they would bind them together in sheaves. They would gather those sheaves up and take them to a threshing floor. What's a threshing floor? It's this wide, circular, flat stone area, usually on top of a hill. So there's a strong breeze that blows across it. They would spread it out on the threshing floor. They would get oxen and they would attach these carts to the oxen. On the bottom of the carts were sharp stones,

like flinty stones. And the ox would go around in circles. And as the cart drug across those stalks of wheat, they'd be cut and broken into pieces. And they'd take a winnowing fork and they'd jam it in and they'd throw it in the air and the breeze would blow the chaff off and then the kernels of wheat would fall to the ground. And they'd scoot those kernels up and they'd take them to a place to be ground and pounded into flour. Sometimes that looked like a millstone attached to a donkey going in circles. A lot of times it looked like just a mortar and pestle, just like this. And families would grind it up themselves, slowly pounding it, finer and finer. Then they would take that flour and mix it with water, with natural yeast. They would fold it again with pressure into dough over and over again. And then they'd take a knife and they would score that dough so that as it rose, the air had a place to escape. And then the last step, they'd take the dough and they'd put it in the fire, into the oven. That's their picture of bread. And so when Jesus comes along, he says, I'm the bread of life. He's saying, I'm this, this is what I've got. through for you. Notice Jesus didn't say he's the baker of the bread of life. He

said he's the bread itself. You know Jesus was once on high. He was on high and he had to come down to the earth. He himself in John 12 said, very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Many seeds. This is Jesus. He comes down from heaven. He takes on human flesh. Why? So that he could die to produce life in many. Eventually he goes through his ministry. Eventually he's taken to the garden at Gethsemane where he's bound up. And he's taken from there to a threshing floor, to a place of judgment in atonement. Which by the way did you know that the holiest ground on earth at this point in human history was a threshing floor? You can read this story for yourself in 2 Samuel 24. King David buys Arunah's threshing floor. That threshing floor becomes the temple of God. The place where atonement and where sacrifice is made. And so Jesus is hauled off to a threshing floor, to the courtyard, circular stone courtyard of Pilate, where he is whipped, where he is cut. He's taken to a cross where nails are pounded into his hands and through his feet. And he's hung on a cross. And just before he dies, a soldier takes a spear and cuts him, slices him open. And he's placed into the fire for three days. What's amazing is when bread comes out of the fire, when it comes out of the oven, it bears the scars of its journey. And this is Jesus. Chuck talked about the story of Thomas last week and where Thomas, who we call Doubting Thomas, sees the resurrected Jesus with his scars. And it's only then that Thomas is able to believe. He says, I've got to put my fingers into your scars. I've got to see. I've got to believe. See this is all of us. Jesus says on the bread of life, he gives us this picture so that all of us would see what he went through for us so that we would be convinced, convinced every day. I don't have to work to earn approval. I don't have to work to earn satisfaction. I don't have to wonder if I belong. He showed it to me. And what bread is meant to be is an everyday daily reminder, literally, of the gospel story. Why? Because every day, whether you've been in church for four days or 400 days, it doesn't matter. You need a reminder of what he did for you. Every day, every roll you pick up, every hamburger bun you eat, every slice of bread like this you

hope isn't squished, is meant to be a reminder of the gospel story of a God who loves you and says, I'll satisfy your hunger. See, all of us have this choice. We can either work out of our woundedness or we can accept the wounds of Christ on our behalf. We can accept the work he did that validates us, the work he did that says we're secure, the work he did that we could never accomplish on our own. Thomas, we call him Doubting Thomas. Chuck said we should call him Honest Thomas. He should be the patron saint of Crossroads. I was like, that's awesome. I like that a lot. Honest Thomas. You could also call him Convinced Thomas, actually, the opposite of Doubt. Why? Well, because church history says that Thomas went further than any other of the original disciples. He went all the way to India where he planted seven churches. I just know when he got there, guess what he did? He was like, hey, that bread you're eating, garlic naan, probably, I don't know. That's the story of the gospel. Let me tell you about a God who loves you, who what he went through for you, it's a language that people can actually understand. That is the gospel. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, when you embrace this, when you see this picture, when you receive it on a daily basis, it changes how you live, changes everything about your life. I'll give you an example in my life. It changed the way that I dated. Maybe you're single, maybe you're dating. This can radically change that part of your life. See, but before I really believed this, I would date trying to get approval from somebody else, fill the need. I worked for affirmation. And after, instead of working for somebody else's affirmation, I worked from the place of affirmation in the relationship. Changed everything, everything. I remember my second date with Sarah. We went to Grader's in Hyde Park in Cincinnati, and we had this conversation. And I said to her in the conversation, I said, look, here's the... Deal. I'm short, I got bad teeth, and I got big ears. You know, I'm really selling myself. Act now before somebody else does, like.

I know that about me. For a long time, that bothered me. It really bothered me. And I try to like work through it. I try to gain acceptance anyway. And so, you know, I'm in a place in my life now where I just know that that doesn't define me. God does. I know what he went through for me. I know that he calls me loved. I know he calls me approved. I know that I'm enough in his eyes, and that's enough for me. And so I just want you to know, that's where I'm coming from. I'm not, I said, I'm not trying to earn your approval. I mean that in a good way. And our relationship, whether it lasts for another week, or for decades, my goal is not to earn your approval. My goal is to help you understand that you are already approved, not by me, but by God. Changes everything in your relationships. When you date that way, it changes everything. It changes the way you work, changes the way you parent, changes everything. That's the gospel. Now there's a second portrait in here we gotta talk about before we run out, just really quick. And it's not just the broken bread, but it's the daily bread.

It's how to have life in his name, not tomorrow, not Sunday, not heaven, but today, daily bread. Daily bread was on the people's mind. Jesus was talking about this. It was from John six. And right before Jesus starts talking about how he's the bread of life, he does this miracle. He's preaching all day long. There's no food, the people get hangry. And so he takes 12 loaves, breaks them, and makes miracle bread for everybody. It's called the feeding of the 5,000, even though it was more like 20 or 25,000 people who were there. Makes bread for everybody. And then he goes to the next town and the people chase after him. Not because they want more awesome preaching, not because they want the word of God, but because they want actual bread. Literally they're like, we found a bread tree. Jesus, this is awesome. And they try to convince him to give them manna. They have this back and forth conversation. Manna is what God made to feed their ancestors when they were leaving slavery in Egypt and they were in the desert. He would make bread every morning. They'd walk outside and they'd pick up

these little flakes of this bread stuff. And that was their daily sustenance. And they're like, Jesus, that was so awesome back then. That satisfied their hunger. That gave them life. And so why don't you do the same thing for us? Why don't you give us manna? And here's Jesus' response, John 6, verse 48. He says, I'm the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. Dead. Literally all the people who eat the manna die except for two guys, Joshua and Caleb. Everybody else dies. He says, this is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give him is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your fathers ate the manna and they're dead. He who eats this bread lives forever. He says, look, you're still chasing the wrong thing. You're still thinking there's something besides me that's going to satisfy you. It's not. Even on a day in, day out basis. By the way, God had already made this point to his people all the way back in Deuteronomy chapter eight.

Says, so he humbled you, allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you didn't know or did your fathers know that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Every word of God. Jesus says what you need on a day in, day out basis. Yeah, bread to eat, but that's not your most important need. Your most important need is to have the word of God every single day. You know, the thing about bread is it's not optional. There's a reason Jesus didn't say, I am the caviar of life. I am like the whipped cream and cherry on top of the Sunday of life. Didn't say that, that's optional, that's luxury. Bread isn't luxury, bread is a necessity. Every single day you've got to eat. Many of us in our lives, I think we're tired, we're exhausted and we're weak and the reason's pretty darn simple. It's because we're not eating. It's because we think that if we eat once a week, maybe, that's like probably pretty good. No, it's not enough, it's not enough. Listen, if you're here, if you're watching online, I love that. Meeting together on a weekly basis is a 2,000 year old, super important, sacred tradition

that is vital to your faith, vital to be part of a faith community. Please come back to church next week. You will not regret it. I promise, and, and, this isn't enough. You gotta eat every day. If you're not, I'm just telling you, you're weaker than you need to be. What does it mean to eat every day? Well, Jesus said, when he taught us how to pray in Matthew 6 of the Lord's Prayer, he said to pray every day, Father, give us today our daily bread. Well, clearly, from everything we've read in the scripture, he's probably not talking about actual bread. I mean, sure, pray for that, but what he's saying is you need God's word, the daily word from God. See, there's a thing available to us, to have life in his name of daily bread, is to wake up every day and say, Jesus, I need you to feed me today, your word. It's something I do every morning. I ask God to give me my daily bread, and I'll tell you, it's not like a magic trick, you know? It's not like I pray that, like, God, give me today my daily bread, woo! Like I drink nine Red Bulls, I got so much energy and insight. No, it's not how it works.

It's training yourself to look for these little moments, to go to him for what you need throughout the entire day. These little moments are, you might be tempted to lean on your experience or your emotional state or whatever, and instead, you turn to God. It's deciding to pray before a meeting. Maybe it's one on your calendar that's been there for a long time, it's stressing you out. Maybe it just pops up, and you decide, before I go in this room and I lean on my own intellect, I lean on my own experience, I lean on my own whatever, instead, I'm just gonna pause and I'm gonna ask God to give me what I need. Give me his word, his bread for this moment. That might sound like so small to you. I promise, if you develop this habit in your life, your life will change. It's not like you're gonna pray before your first meeting and to walk in, they'll be like, surprise, you're senior vice president now, amazing. It was just like 30 seconds ago, we decided that. Yeah, I don't know what you were doing, but that's not gonna happen. But what will happen is when you go into that meeting, you'll bring a calm and a wisdom and a perspective that you did not have on your own, and it will be uncommon in that room, and over time, you will see change in your life.

This is how it works to have daily bread. I was talking to a good friend and mentor of mine, Kirk Perry, this past week. He's a Fortune 500 CEO, very successful guy, very faithful guy. And he was telling me about this moment where he was offered a job he wasn't expecting with five minutes warning in front of an entire board. He was like, blah, you know, this guy in the hallway goes, this is what I'm about to do. I'm about to talk about this thing. And so you got five minutes to think about it. He was like, blah. And so what he responded to the guy with was, hey, this might sound weird, but I need a minute to pray. I was like, okay. So Kirk takes a minute and prays. He said, in that minute, he just felt this word from God of peace. Just felt this sense of peace. And so he walked back in the room. The anxiety that could have been there wasn't there. When he walked back in the room, the one to prove himself that could have been there wasn't there. Instead, he had peace. And guess what? That peace and that calm just made them wanna offer him the job more. Of course, of course.

This is what it's like. See, when you ask for daily bread, it can change every part of your life. It can change the way you date. It can change the way you parent. It gives you something that did not have on your own. Are you asking for it? Are you seeking daily bread? Last week, Chuck entered the service by practicing what he called Visio Divina. This ancient sacred tradition of looking at pictures of paintings in a prayerful sense to try to have a conversation with God. He put up that picture of the painting of Thomas putting his hand in Jesus' side. We're actually gonna end the same way today, but not with a big painting on the screen. Instead, I want you to picture in your imagination right now, bread. You can go ahead and close your eyes to help so you're not distracted. And I want you to picture bread. Maybe the bread you're picturing is bread in the process of being created. Maybe it's something about the broken bread, the cutting down of the stock. Maybe it's the bread in the oven. Maybe the picture in your mind is of daily bread. That's your need. Whatever it is, I want you to assume the picture

in your mind is from God and have a conversation with him about it right now. If your picture's about broken bread and believing the gospel, if you're sitting here and you're going, man, I've spent a lot of time trying to satisfy my own hunger for approval, my own hunger to be validated, my own hunger to be enough. Just tell Jesus, say, Jesus, I want you to be my bread of life. I receive you as my broken bread. Just receive the gospel. Maybe you're in a spot in your life where you're just tired. Maybe there's even something on your calendar today that you do not have the energy for. Maybe there's a thing on your calendar you think you do. Would you just reframe it and just ask God for daily bread? Ask him to give you the word you need before you have that conversation. Ask him to give you the attitude that you need before you go home and spend the rest of your day. By the way, don't worry about tomorrow's bread. I'll take care of itself. Just focus on today, today. Let me pray for you. Jesus, thank you for clear pictures that even people like me can understand of how you love us, how you gave yourself for us, how you suffered for us once and for all to prove your love.

We just say thank you. We believe it and we receive it. I think you didn't stop there, but you give us daily nourishment. I'm asking for everybody here, everybody watching online, that you would be our daily bread today. Develop in us the habit of turning to you, not once a week, not sometimes, not when we remember, but a habit of daily going to you to give us what we need for that moment and that day. We wanna have a life in your name. Bless you for being so good. Amen. Listen, I hope this message has blessed you. I hope it's challenged you. I hope it's helped you to grow deeper in your faith and closer in your relationship with Jesus. I wanna encourage everybody, everybody watching on Pando, don't just passively listen to this message. Wrestle with it. Sit with it. Open the scriptures for yourself. Have the conversations. Ask the hard questions. Because if Jesus really is who he says he is, that changes everything. We genuinely love to hear from God. If there's topics you'd like me to cover on future episodes of Mornings with Miko or questions you're wrestling with,

content you'd like to see more of, a prayer request, or even feedback on this I Am message today, write us. Let us know. What's been standing out to you? What's God been revealing to you? What is he pressed on your heart? The testimonies are coming out of this season. What are you wrestling with right now? Write us at prisonsatcrossroad.net. One of the things we love most about this community is hearing how God is moving in your lives from all across the country. So hear me when I say this. Please reach out to us. We genuinely wanna hear from y'all. We love y'all, we're praying for y'all. I'll see y'all next week on Mornings with Miko.