We Are What We Eat and Drink

I remember the first time I heard the words "You are what you eat." I was offended. I took that to mean that I had no real identity above meat and potatoes or a McDonald's hamburger. I thoroughly rejected such a humiliating place of dependence on something coming into me every day in order for me to simply be me.

Well meaning nutritionists bent on changing our eating patterns invented this simple phrase to keep us focused on eating the right foods. Simple phrases like this stick with us over time and they do help us curb some of our natural impulses that can destroy the best things about us.

I was in a dentist's office once where I read the words "You do not have to floss all your teeth, just the ones you want to keep." I have never forgotten those words! I still have the teeth I hope to keep.

Jesus always used simple, concise, and shocking statements to allow us to grasp profound truths. Even before nutritionists came up with "You are what you eat and drink." Jesus said something much more shocking about eating and drinking.

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." John 6:53

The first time I read these words I was offended and confused. The idea that I needed to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood to have life in me was shocking to my idea of Christianity. These words shocked the first disciples, too. They were meant to shock the disciples both then and now.

Humans are on many levels the result of what they eat and drink. Humans can never be their true and best selves unless they eat and drink what they were designed to eat and drink. No eating and drinking will eventually mean the end of me.

Humans are receivers. Humans are not the source of themselves. They are dependent on resources provided for them to be themselves.

In the spiritual realm we were designed to eat and drink continuously of God's grace and truth in order to be truly and forever alive. Jesus is in human flesh and blood the Divinely provided grace and truth humans must eat and drink to live. A failure to receive Jesus as God's continuous provision for spiritual life means the end of us eternally.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

And 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." John 6:35

Only Jesus can deliver to us from His eternal body and blood, the grace and truth we need to finally be our best us and truly live. We must eat and drink to live as the human beings we were meant to be.

It is odd how some statements stop offending us and even grow on us over time. It is as if the weakening of our bodies or the loosening of our teeth reminds us that, "We are what we eat." And "You don't have to floss your teeth, just the one's you want to keep."

So it is in the spiritual realm. As I have grown weaker in trying to independently be my best self over the years, I have found the words "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" much less offensive and confusing. In fact, I love these words! I am receiving His life as eternal life every day and I will keep doing so for all eternity. Truly I am alive spiritually because I eat and drink the only life that can keep me alive.

Have you given thanks for this Divinely provided food and drink that Jesus is lately?