Isaiah 55:2 (NIV) Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Once, when Jesus was warning the disciples to be on their guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, they thought that He was saying that because they forgot to bring bread (Matthew 16:6-7). They totally missed the point. Jesus was speaking about the teaching of the Pharisees and not about food. In the same way, the Lord, speaking in the verses above through the Prophet Isaiah, is admonishing His people to not waste their resources and their energy on what will not nourish them. God was speaking about their relationship with Him.

The Israelites had a penchant for starting out right and then heading in the wrong direction. As many warnings as they received from God directly and through the prophets, they always wound up going towards things that not only would not nourish their souls, but that would do great damage. God, in His infinite patience and compassion, was reasoning with them once again, counseling them to delight in the riches that He had made available to them, which begin with an intimate relationship with Him. He words it the way that He does because we absolutely need a relationship with Him in our lives. We were made for that purpose and without it, it’s as if we were eating things that had no nutritional value and that weren’t even classified as food. If you eat what is not food for any amount of time instead of real food, you will get sick and eventually, you will die. The Israelites were doing much worse than that. What they were doing can be compared with going beyond ingesting what is not food to ingesting what is poisonous. They were worshipping false gods and getting involved with all of the vile practices of the pagan nations around them, including burning their children in sacrifice to the false god, Baal.

God invites us to eat what is real bread. We know that Jesus is the Bread of Life, so the scripture above has even more meaning to us today than it did to the people of that day. But even though we have more light today, we tend to do the same things that the Israelites did back then. We may not be sacrificing our children to false gods (although some people who say they are Christians believe that abortion is okay), but many believers do waste their strength and their energy on things that do not edify their spirit or their soul and that even pollutes them. Many are not careful with what they are ingesting, such as what they allow their eyes to take in and their ears to hear among other things.

Let’s be alert and listen to our Lord speaking to us today and eat what will build up our faith and what will feed our spirit and our soul, which includes seeking Him in prayer and feeding on His Word. Let’s stay away from what is not bread and delight in the banquet that the Lord has made available to us for our good and for His glory.

Pastor Joey Vazquez