Today’s Manna 032611
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This blog comes to you from the people at
Peace Mennonite Church of Columbia, MO
Meditation and thoughts follow the scripture.
Scriptures for the day selected by http://www.commontexts.org/
Psalm 95
Exodus 16:27-35
John 4:1-6
Psalm 95
1O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
5The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.
6O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!
8Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.”
11Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Exodus 16:27-35
27On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. 28The Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions? 29See! The Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you food for two days; each of you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day.” 30So the people rested on the seventh day. 31The house of Israel called it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
32Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, in order that they may see the food with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’“ 33And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord, to be kept throughout your generations.” 34As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the covenant, for safekeeping. 35The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna, until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
John 4:1-6
4Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” 2—although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee.
4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today’s Manna 032611
The story of the manna raining down upon the people of Israel, as they wandered in the desert for 40 years is maybe history and maybe myth. Either way, it is wonderful and true.
How many people have wandered for 40 years, or more, yet still received a daily portion of God’s grace, either by food or by spirit.
If we establish a relationship with Jesus, then our daily manna is he. Every day our spirit gets what it needs that day to live and flourish. We cannot store this spiritual manna. We need the grace of God day by day for our daily portion.
If this is myth, then we are being taught clearly that we have to trust God. A savings account or storehouse of manna is not possible and we have to trsut that God will be with us every new day. Every day, fresh manna!
Let us pray for our manna today, both as food and as spiritual food. As the world grows more and more into a violent daily struggle for food and fuel, may we renew our commitment to depend only on God each day anew.
(brother) Bill
Mennonite Preacher 