Rande Greene

“Jesus answered, “Scripture says, A person cannot live on bread alone but on every word that God speaks.'”

– Matthew 4:4

This was a clarification of value. Bread is a good thing. Bread is a blessing from God. God gave His covenant people bread in the wilderness. We are taught by our Lord to pray for “daily bread”. Bread is not a bad thing. It is not the only thing. It is not the main thing. It is not the most important thing. Provocative statement: God can be replaced. Not successfully but use things as substitutes for God in our lives. A person can choose an alternative to the Lord. There is no suitable replacement though. Idols abound but never succeed. We can serve and worship anything. That doesn’t make the idol a good or beneficial alternative. “…every word that God speaks.” This is a reference to the Bible. But it is more than that. It means communion and fellowship with God. It means all that comes from knowing the Lord and walking with Him. We need Jesus! We need the Bible, but the Bible without Jesus drives an honest person to despair. We just can’t live up to it. We cannot truly live without Christ Jesus. There is no abundant life without Jesus. When we turn to Jesus in faith and dependence we find “living waters”, we find the “bread of life”. We find what we hunger and thirst for.