Terry Casales - March 2, 2020
Manna means, “bread from Heaven” — it is the food that God provided the Israelites while they wondered in the wilderness for 40 years.
And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. - Exodus 16:35 (NKJV)
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Manna is what sustained them and gave them life. Manna is what caused none of their sandals nor their clothing to wear out. Manna is the provision of God.
Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness; They lacked nothing; Their clothes did not wear out And their feet did not swell. - Nehemiah 9:21 (NKJV)
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But manna is way more than that. The Lord revealed to me that manna is not just what He provides for us to meet our physical needs. It is not just financial provision. Manna is God meeting us where we are at. Manna is God pursuing us and making a way for us to be reconciled back to Him whenever we have stumbled. Manna is God never giving up on us!
Manna is God’s mercy that is new every morning! Manna is your next breath! Manna is the gift of a new day! Manna is God’s love, God’s grace and the gift of God’s faith to get up every morning and having the freedom to seek the Lord’s presence in the secret place, meditating in prayer on what the Word of God says about who you are and about who He is!
Manna is the ultimate privilege of having a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe! Manna is the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit to enable us to hear the still, small, voice of God for ourselves in our daily walk with Him!
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” - Luke 11:13 (NKJV)
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Jesus recognized His need for manna — the grace of God — necessary for Him to be able to carry out the assignment His Father commissioned Him to do.
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. - John 4:34 (NKJV)
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Manna is the grace and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to do what God has created you to do on earth as His son/daughter!
But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. - Romans 5:15 (NKJV)
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Manna is the Word of God! Manna is every promise God has made to you - His covenant promises to you that are active every day and the assurance from Him that they shall be fulfilled!
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. - Deuteronomy 8:3 (NKJV)
For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. - 2 Corinthians 1:20 (NKJV)
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Manna is the “Bread of Life” Himself, Jesus! Manna is the bread of eternal life - the gift of salvation that Jesus provides! it is the gift of abiding in Him and living out of that relationship and the privilege of carrying the fullness of God in you, as Jesus did, to continue the great commission that He began on earth!
55 For My flesh is [a]food indeed, and My blood is [b]drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.” - John 6:55-58 (NKJV)
Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” - John 6:27 (NKJV)
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Manna is God’s promise to never leave you nor forsake you. Manna is God’s protection.
For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. - Psalm 91:11 (NKJV)
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” - Hebrews 13:5 (NKJV)
A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you. - Psalm 91:7 (NKJV)
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Manna is Jesus, the Hope of glory!
Manna is God’s everlasting love for us! Manna is the New Covenant Jesus paid the price for on the Cross so that we would be reconciled to the Father! Our relationship with Abba is manna! Our fellowship with the Holy Spirt is manna! The Holy Spirit Himself is manna! Manna is the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God!
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. - Romans 5:10 (NKJV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, - Ephesians 2:8 (NKJV)
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. - Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV)
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Manna is not something that we have to earn in our own effort to receive God’s approval and acceptance! We have already been accepted by Him and adopted into His Family! He chose us and has loved us from forever! God has loved us and known us from before we were born! Manna is something that God provides not just because He knows we need it, but because He loves us and we are His sons and daughters!
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. - John 14:18 (NKJV)
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. - John 1:12 (NKJV)
Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? - Matthew 6:26 (NKJV)
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! - Matthew 7:7-11 (NKJV)
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Manna is God’s promise, as our Abba, to always take good care of us and sustain us. Manna is the goodness of God in the land of the living! Manna is the strength of God that we need when we are weak.
The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed - Psalm 41:3 (NKJV)
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Jesus understood the need for manna — when He was in the wilderness for 40 days He was confident all He had to do is to say the word — He could ask Abba to come to His rescue at any time — and He would step in and help Him.
Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? - Matthew 26:53 (NKJV)
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One can see the manna from our Heavenly Father when He sent angels to minister to Jesus after He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness.
Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. - Matthew 4:11 (NKJV)
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Manna is the love of God for us that never fails! Abba is such a good and generous Father!
32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? - Romans 8:32 (NKJV)
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. - 1 Corinthians 13:8 (NKJV)
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38-39 (NKJV)
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There are so many more scripture verses that I could include about the manna of God! When we realize that He is our Source of EVERYTHING — we realize that we cannot live without Him — we realize that He is the One who keeps everything working — not just sustaining us — but sustaining the entire universe!! How can anyone deny the Greatness of our God? How can anyone doubt the power of God? How can anyone deny the extent of the everlasting Love of our Heavenly Father, who created us, as the fragile vessels that we are, and yet, to Him, we are the most precious treasures that He ever created? NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING can ever hope to sustain us like He can! NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING can ever hope to satisfy the longing of our souls and our hearts like He can!
The most amazing, and indescribable thing is that everything that He has done, everything that He does right now and everything that He will ever do is born out of His love for us — for all time!
What a wonderful, faithful and loving Father!!