December 18 – True Manna

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“And Moses said to them, ‘This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.'” Exodus 16:15

This manna was entirely different from the common manna, which is shaken from the leaves of trees and used only in medicine. This dropped down from the clouds and was truly a miraculous production, as is evident from the following circumstances:

• it fell but six days in the week
• it fell in such a prodigious quantity, as sustained almost three million souls
• a double portion of it fell the day before the Sabbath — and that none fell on that day.

This manna is called “spiritual meat” because it signifies spiritual blessings in heavenly things. Christ Himself is the true manna, the bread of life, of which that was a figure. The word of God is manna too, by which our souls are nourished. The comforts of the Spirit are also “hidden manna.” These come down from heaven, as the manna did, and are the support and comfort of the Divine life in the soul, while we are in the wilderness of this world. The manna they gathered in the wilderness was not to be hoarded up — but eaten. So they that have received Christ must live upon Him daily by faith, and not think of laying up a stock today to serve them tomorrow. They who ate manna in the wilderness hungered again, whereas they that feed on Christ by faith shall never hunger.

“Lord, give us this bread always.”

Reader, is Christ Jesus manna to your soul? Are you living upon Him — upon Him alone — upon Him day by day? You have no life without this.

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)