TEXT: Due 8:3
God had an agenda to drag the nation of Israel to a place of strong conviction ,
persuasion and knowing:that man does not live by bread alone...in other word a man
can exist without food. That is the real import of that scripture! What God means
here is that there is something that can perform the function of food in the life of
man so that with or without food a man can still go on in life.
This is what God wanted to teach this nation of Israel.He desired for them to look beyond food and grasp that sustenance does not come from food alone that in the hand of God there exist something that can keep life going.
This nation had hold the notion that existence depends on food and food alone, and
without it life is meaningless. so they hung their hope and life on food, they held
that if food is removed from this life all humanity is doomed. But God needed to
show to them that it is not true.God must correct this lies of the gods of this age.
He undertook to give his people a revealation of a higher life , a life that does
not depend on the system of this world. What God did was to make His people
experienced hunger, hallaluah! what a strange way to teach! this was not achieved by
a conserted and step by step Bible expositions. It was not by school of theology, no,
not by international conference but by the instrumentality of deprivation, a
derobbing and denial of a legitimate need for an ultimate divine knowing!
See, whenever God wants to bring a man to a place of true value for eternal things, He first and foremost deprives him of some legitimate rights. Jesus' disciples would not have known that ministry can be fulfilled with or without money if He hadn't told them to go without their purses and to greet no man.
when they came back they told The Lord that they lacked nothing. You see Jesus humiliating the notion of many of us today that wouldn't do ministry until we have sponsors! If a man waits for money he would never do any thing in life and ministry.
So if God wants to show to any man that he can do without anything, He robes Him of that thing!
Many brothers and sisters can testify that things they thought were
indispensable were not true after they were taken away from them! some lost
patronage, others lost the favours of men but yet moved on unhindered in life.
There is nothing in this life that man cannot do without except God! nothing is worth
dying for except the purpose of God?
Jesus asked His disciples whether they lacked anything when they went out without two cloths, extra money and they pities of men. But they said they lacked nothin! This was revelation to them. And they lived their lives base on that revelation. Jesus when the devil asked him to use God's power to make bread, he told him that nourishment does not come from bread alone! after the temptation angels ministered to him with what keep them angelic!
The bible didn't say they gave him food but that they ministered to him wt what? with their kind of sustenance! God is on the mission of imparting knowledge, some of these knowledge aren't going to come from books , massages, pulpits and criticism but via the furnace of daily experiences of the wise chastening of the HOLY GHOST.
May we not faith when rebuked and nor despise the chastening of God. yea, may we not forget the exhortation that speaks to us as unto son.
IS YOUR LIFE FULL OF DIFFICULTIES AND TEMPTATIONS THEN BE HAPPY, FOR
WHEN THE WAY IS ROUGH, YOUR PATIENCE HAS THE CHANCE TO GROW, LET IT
GROW, FOR WHEN YOU ARE TRIED, YOU WOULD BECOME A MAN OF STRONG
CHARACTER, FULL AND COMPLETE , READY FOR ANY THING.