John 6:48, 56-58 NASB
48 “I am the bread of life.
56 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”
Do you struggle to order food? Picture this: you're at a restaurant. You look at the menu. There are a lot of great options, but you're simply not sure what to order.
“What are you craving?” is the question I often ask my wife when trying to figure out what to order.
In other words, “What do you want?”
Sometimes I get a clear answer, but sometimes I get a “Hmm, I don't know.” Maybe I'm not the only husband who finds himself in this situation.
It feels as though life has a kind of menu, and everyone is offering something. It has me wondering: Do you know what you want? What is it you deeply desire?
What is your heart hungry for?
As strange as Jesus' comments about eating and drinking may sound, He was onto something. We can understand His words in their proper context. He wasn't literally telling people to eat His flesh and drink His actual blood. He was speaking metaphorically.
We all understand what it means to feel hunger and thirst. But there's a deeper question.
What is your heart hungry for? What are you thirsty for?
Our hearts hunger and thirst. There's no denying that.
And we must ask ourselves: What are we using to satisfy our hunger? Where are we going to quench our thirst?
In his book You Are What You Love, James K. A. Smith, a professor of philosophy at Calvin University, argues that we are what we love. But he also makes a similar point: We are what we desire.
What we consume ends up shaping what we want. We've all experienced this. When I open a bag of my favorite chips, there's no way I'm eating just one. These kinds of foods are manufactured to make us want more. Before we know it, we're at the bottom of the bag.
I would go as far as to say this: We become what we repeatedly consume.
Maybe Paul's statement about sowing makes more sense in light of this.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”
Galatians 6:7 NASB
We cannot expect to harvest the kind of life Jesus promises if we never sow into that kind of life.
Maybe it's no wonder Jesus invites us to come and consume Him, to come to the table. Why? Because our hearts are hungry and thirsty, and there is no better place to find the meal we're looking for.
Yet Jesus isn't the only option we encounter in this life.
When was the last time you stepped into a food court at a mall? Sometimes the options are overwhelming. Life has its own kind of food court, full of things for us to consume. We can choose material possessions, attention, entertainment, pleasure, and so much more.
And I wonder: Could we honestly say that Jesus is what we truly want?
Maybe we need to be honest. There are times when we don't desire Jesus. But we must ask ourselves: Why is that? Why don't we desire Him? Why don't we want what is ultimately good for us?
We often assume that knowledge is the way to freedom. We've all heard the saying, “Knowledge is power.” But we can confuse knowledge with understanding.
Here's the reality: Humans are creatures of habit. We'd like to think that we make reasonable and intelligent decisions every time we consume something. But many of our decisions are driven by habit. From the kind of lunch we eat to the grocery store trips we make, we often don't even think about it. Before we know it, the bag of chips is already in the shopping cart.
Here's the reality: We've already been conditioned to want certain kinds of food. I mean that both physically and metaphorically. Sugar, fat, and salt can make food especially appealing. And some products contain so much of them that they keep us coming back for more.
But what about our hearts? Have we been conditioned to desire something other than God?
The world is not a neutral place. There are kingdoms fighting for our attention, fighting to win us over and shape our appetites toward what they have to offer.
The best ads don't make you think. No, they make you feel. They make you want. They're targeting our hunger. They come with promises: Buy this, and you'll satisfy your hunger.
How, then, do we develop a taste for Jesus? How do we grow to desire Him above all else? Can our desires really change?
There's good news!
Here's what James K. A. Smith goes on to argue:
“The church—the body of Christ—is the place where God invites us to renew our loves, reorient our desires, and retrain our appetites.”
James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love
God has given us the church as a place where our hearts are trained. When we gather to worship, God meets us there. Christian worship is far more than simply offering something we have to God. It's also about God meeting us as we devote ourselves to Him.
And when God meets us, He shapes us. He forms us slowly, week after week, training our appetites and shaping our hearts to long for Him.
I pray we never take our Sunday gatherings for granted. Because when we gather, when we sing, pray, eat, and drink together, God uses these practices to shape and form our hearts toward what is good.
Toward the Kingdom of God.
We've all heard the saying, “You are what you eat.”
So the question becomes: Who will you become?
Will you consume what leads you toward the life you want to live?
