In our day, the Church of Jesus Christ has experienced the worst spiritual drought in its entire history. Multitudes of sheep on the verge of starvation are crying out to their shepherds to give them some life-giving food, something that sustains them in these hard times. But too often they are not given a crumb of spiritual nourishment. They leave the house of God empty, unsatisfied and weak. They have already tired of crawling, again and again, towards an empty table.
That was not God's purpose for his people, and it hurts him to see it that way. God has provided bread for the whole world. And the bread He offers is more than to survive; it is food for a life in its most complete measure, the "life in abundance" of which he spoke Jesus.
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Who is this Bread of God, from which we are so hungry? Jesus gave us the answer. He said: "The bread of God is the one that came down from heaven and gives life to the world" (John 6:33). In other words, Christ himself is the answer! Like the manna that God sent to sustain the life of the children of Israel in the desert, Jesus is for us the Bread of God, the gift sent to sustain our life today and every day.
The Bread of God, when eaten every day, produces a quality of life that Jesus himself enjoyed. Christ participated in a life that flowed directly from his heavenly Father; a life, he tells us, that should also encourage us: "As ... I live for the Father, He who eats me also will live by me "(John 6:57).
That bread is what modern Christianity lacks, and it is what it desperately needs. My sincere prayer is that this book will help satisfy the spiritual hunger that many are feeling in their lives.
This spiritual famine has lasted for many years. It is that the more a person moves away from Christ, the source of all life, the more death takes over it. In the same way, churches and ministries die when they lose contact with that life-giving current. In fact, many of these churches and ministries have been slowly declining for some time. That is why many disillusioned believers cry out to God, longing for a church that has some life. That is why most young people say that their churches are "dead".
The prophet Amos spoke of a day when "beautiful maidens and young men will faint from thirst" (Amos 8:13). So Amos cried:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine to the earth, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but to hear the word of the Lord. ? they will wander from sea to sea; from the north to the east they will go looking for the word of the Lord, and they will not find it.
Amos 8: 11-12
Many Christians are offended when they are told that it is God who commands that famine of the true Word. And it is true that today there is much more preaching and vigorous teaching that is called "revelation". Bibles are more visible than ever. There is crowds that run to hear their favorite preachers and teachers. There are even those who say that this period in the history of Christianity is a time of revival, a glorious age of light of the gospel and new truth. But if what is offered to the people of God is not the Bread of God that came from heaven, then it is not true spiritual food. It will not produce life. Rather, it will cause many to die of terrible spiritual hunger.
The truth is that this hunger that leads to death abounds in the house of God today. The famine is causing many believers to leave the church to go in search of something that satisfies their most intimate needs. Now the churches are plagued with adultery, divorces, "Christian" rock, anti-biblical psychology and New Age gospels. Many young Christians are giving themselves up to drugs and sexual immorality in search of fulfillment.This happens because much of what is heard today in the pulpitos is, in the best of cases, pleasant food. The sermons are not succulent or difficult to swallow. They are even "nice"! The anecdotes are well told, the applications are easy and practical, and nothing that is said ever offends anyone. It is not difficult to take a spouse or friend who is not a Christian with you on Sunday because you will not feel uncomfortable. No one will confront you about sin. There will be no burning coals from the altar of God that burns his conscience, nor burning arrows of conviction from the pulpit that will move him to his knees.
There will not be any prophetic finger that signals the heart and will say with a thunder voice: "You are that man!" And if in reality the hammer falls on sin, its effect is quickly damped.It is amazing but true: the most comfortable and reassuring place of conscience to hide from the blazing eyes of a holy God is within a dead church. His preachers function more as funerary than as apostles of life.