JESUS is the Bread of God; He is also the JESUS Manna for His people. The manna fell morning by morning around the camp of Israel in the wilderness, and those who rose early gathered thereof. The manna was the staple food of Israel in the wilderness; it was their bread, their staff of life. So is the Lord the food of His people in the wilderness of this world. He is our Bread-not only our Life, but the support of our spiritual existence, and thus our Staff of Life. As we need our daily bread, so is Jesus the Manna for the daily wants of our souls. When He is indifferently sought after, when there is but a poor appetite for Him, the spiritual state of the child of God is sickly.
We each eat our daily bread for ourselves, according to our strength and appetite, and what we eat becomes part of ourselves. Hence the figure that brings to us Jesus as the Manna is most practical in its teaching. No one can feed on Christ for another; each child of God does this solely for himself. What is thus received in the heart is private and personal. It is a secret between Christ and His own who feed on Him. The world cannot see or gather the food upon which the soul of the Christian feeds. Moreover, none but the individual who finds the preciousness of Christ in his daily trials and difficulties, in his pains and sorrows, knows the special grace of the Lord to him, himself, in his peculiar circumstances.
We all are aware that Christ is the Manna, but the individual child of God who feeds on Christ, knows Him according to his own experiences of Christ. Experiences of what Christ is are secret, though believers may tell others of His grace and goodness,
Thus in those who truly feed on Christ there arises what we may term a holy secret between the Lord Himself and them. We have our earthly confidant; there are certain intimacies which are never shared by more than two hearts. And we may say, there is a private sweetness to the soul of the child of God, a secret between Christ in heaven and him on earth, which it is the Lord's pleasure that none other shall share.
Christians have joys in common and griefs in common, but never can one receive for another the special ministry of the Lord to the heart wherewith He soothes and solaces in life's trials.
Searching for Him as the Manna, and finding Him prepared for us before we rose to search for Him; and taking Him, as it were, to our tents and feeding upon Him, forms in the believer on earth true Christian character. The Christian becomes Christ-like by feeding on Christ.
Now our Lord tells us that in heaven He will give to him who has been the overcomer, in a day when the masses mingle with the world and are in spirit united with it (Rev. 2:44Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. (Revelation 2:4)..), to eat of the hidden manna (17). What will be this manna in heaven? There will be no rising up early in the morning there-no retiring alone into the tent there! For there no noonday heat shall be known, and there earth's pilgrimage and tents will have been forever left behind.
True, but God has His delights in Christ. In heaven, in glory, the manna of God's people is at God's right hand, even as the manna that fell in the wilderness was placed in the golden pot within the ark in the Holiest of All, and laid up before the Lord. That golden pot was located in the sanctuary; it was not there to supply the needs of the pilgrims in the wilderness, but to utter its voice, as it were, in the ark of God to God.
The Lord has promised His people on earth the hidden Manna when they reach glory. Not simply Himself, as we feel our need of Him, but Himself to feed our affections according to the thoughts of God about Him. There will be an unceasing, unvarying delight in Christ there, according to God's thoughts of Him in glory, for all who have found Him here suited to them in their need on earth.
Thus Christ will be for all eternity the Manna for His people. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and His people will eternally delight in Him. Moreover, He says, “I will give" to the overcomer "to eat of the hidden manna," for it ever is and ever will be His joy to satisfy the hearts of His own.