By Odon Bulamba
Jesus said, “Father give to us our daily bread”. Why didn’t he ask for a monthly bread, or weekly
or yearly? Our lives day after day
depends on God. Bread doesn’t only mean
what we eat or see but it means the signs of life. Bread means food but before to become food it
is a plant. The plant is turned into
flour. The flour is mixed with water and
sometimes yeast added. The ingredients
then must be baked. If I take some wheat
flour and put it on a plate with a glass of water and put a fire there and ask
you to now eat, you will say, “this is not food” because you can’t eat wheat by
itself.
Bread is really tasty. It takes
time to make bread. When I was a child I
used to bake a lot and I would steal some wheat and oil from my mother’s
kitchen and take it into the bush. I would make my own bread hiding in the bush
because my mum wouldn’t let me bake because according to my culture only women
can bake.
The colour of the outside is different to the colour of the inside of the
bread. There are two different
colours. The outside is in contact with
the heat from the fire (or oven) and becomes the colour of that the wheat plant
is initially which is a golden colour.
The inside remains white. The
outside gets a little bit burnt but the inside remains intact. When Jesus broke the bread, He told people, “Take
this, this is my body”.
Some versions say, He broke it and then blessed it but other versions
say he blessed it and then broke it. We
are the body of Christ, maybe Ange is the leg, Robbie the arm etc. All together we make up that body and when Jesus
rose up His hands and broke it, He wasn’t saying He is breaking Himself. He was saying, “I am breaking you in Me because
whoever sees you will see Me in you”. This
reminds us that God said at the beginning, let us make man in our image. Once you are broken, God continues to pray
for you (HOLY SPIRIT will intercede for you).
When you are saved, he breaks you and tells people to eat you. You are the food for others: your actions and
your words will make people to be fed spiritually. How can I become a bread for others?
Wheat is a plant and easy to grow.
You are a plant that God uses. God
looks at the life inside the plant. The
plant has a role to collect food and feed the branches. It will collect from the soil and suck the
food and feed the plant. The roots will
bring it to the trunk that will take it to the branches and then flowers and
then fruit. If the roots say no, then
the plant will die. When Jesus says I
break you it means for you to become a servant to feed others and if you say
no, those people will starve to death, they will die from lack of knowledge.
Ex 12: Moses was given a mission to help the Israelites to leave
Egypt. Wouldn’t you be proud to lead all
these millions people out of Egypt?
Everyone likes to be a leader. But
to look after millions of people is a big job especially when you can’t look
after your own family. Moses couldn’t
look after his own family. His wife was
doing work that Moses was supposed to do.
God said regardless of your weaknesses, you will take my people out of Egypt.
God knows your weaknesses but His purpose is for you to lead His
people. Moses came up with a good
excuse, “whenever I speak I stutter and people laugh”. God said, “you have to go”. Very often I present my excuses to God. I tell God, “not today, what about tomorrow”. Excuses can take us far. God said to Moses go and God chose Aaron to
walk with Moses.
Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh on nine occasions and each time God was
turning Aaron and Moses down. Pharaoh
refused to listen. Moses would perform
miracles and still Pharaoh would not give up.
Sometimes God sends you places and then puts a barrier there to see how
you react. You ask, “God why didn’t it
work”. God tells you, “I’m baking you
because you were wheat and water and I’m the fire and this is the cooking
process and cooking is a long process and takes time”.
Nine times they went back and finally God said, Aaron and Moses this is
now your first month – start to count it from today. God changed the calendar. God can change your plan and you were
thinking to do something in 2012 and you don’t get it. You can think about ideas but only God can
make it happen.
Moses and Aaron had to go to all the families and ask them to slaughter
a lamb and put the blood around the door frame.
Pick up animal blood and put it around the house – what will your
neighbour say? The role of the door is
to come in and out. What leads your
body? Your mouth, nose, ears, eyes,
feelings? Someone can become angry and punch the door so the outside will reflect
the inside. That is the door that God
said to paint with blood.
The role of the blood to purify and sanctify. Repentance should be at the frame door of
your mouth, ears, eyes or wherever there is a danger for sin to come in. God is reminding us that if we don’t put
blood there, God will come down and any house without blood, He will kill the
first born. The first born is Jesus. Maori culture respects the first born because
they are the representative of the family and they are there to teach the
family.
When my father died, I was given His clothes because I am the first
born. Jessica (my youngest sister) calls
me father because I am the first born.
Every first born child and animal of every family will be killed without
the blood on the door frame. To kill the lamb was not enough. Jesus dying for us was not enough if we don’t
apply His blood on our door frames. My
door according to Revelations 20 is the heart.
If you hear the knock, you can open and let Him in. The door of your heart should be painted with
blood of Jesus.
Jesus said, “This is my blood, drink it”. There are around 4000 components in
blood. Four major things: red, white
cells, plasma, platelets. When you cut
yourself you can see blood coming out but platelets will be alerted and they
run to secure the position in the body of the person to protect them. Some of our brothers are getting lost. Blood is supposed to be in the body. The
platelets are very quick thinking. Platelets
will run.
If you are hurt in your arm, you will hold firmly there to stop the
blood being lost. Platelets will say,
praise the Lord we can act now and they will start to make the blood coagulate. The blood flow will stop while the platelets
are very small. However, it won’t work
if you don’t put a tourniquet around the arm so the platelets can work.
In the event of anything, pray to God, “this is my problem, I am hurt,
there is a cut over here, I am holding it”.
How many times do people wound you?
You hear words that shock you and you lose control. Is your mind painted with blood of Jesus?
When you see the power bill, you become angry or you become worried. Is your mouth painted with the blood of
Jesus? You can say yes I’m saved, I have Jesus in my life, He has paid the
price for me, but you need to paint the blood on all the entries of your body
and your heart.
Jesus said, “Take this wine” and they drank like you and I this morning
and when we drank the grape juice for communion. Jesus said, “remember me”. How often do you remember about the blood
circulating in your body? You don’t think about it. You have no idea but Jesus said to remember
that blood that was given to you. How
often do you remember that Jesus died for you?
When I have an accident, I remember but do I remember His blood which
means that every step we make we should think about the cleanliness of our heart. Is my heart clean? If Jesus comes back now, am I really clean,
am I ready to go? When I see something,
is it really important for me to see this? Am I really ready and clean if Jesus
comes now? It’s only when I cross
hardship that I remember Jesus.
When we were taking communion this morning, not many people took the
outside part of the bread. Most took the
inside because the inside is soft while the outside is tough and maybe people were
worried what had touched the outside (a fly?).
This reminds us that the outside of our bodies is always burnt by the
fire but our soul and spirit is not attacked.
A blessing will start with your body.
You feel like stealing, the thought will come first by your eyes and
sends the message inside that what you are seeing looks good. Then your legs move and your hands take
it. Your conscience will tell you, “No I
don’t want to think about the blood of Jesus.
Be away from me God.” Then you thank God because no one caught me and
now I have what I wanted. I have heard
of armed robbers praying before going to steal.
Your body will go through fire and will change the colour of your
body. When your body is burning with the
desire, do you stand firm in Jesus? When you have blessings and all that God
allows, do you stand firm in Jesus?
When I was a child I was sent to buy bread and a list of other items
but my mother insisted that I should not forget the bread. I bought butter milk instead of butter and
milk and then I saw yoghurt and bought it for me and I thought I’ll throw away
the receipt so my mum won’t know. When I
got home, my mother asked, “Where is the bread?” That’s when I woke up. I told my mother, “I can go back’. But I knew in my heart the money was
used. I went back to shop with intention
to steal the bread. God was so good,
when I walked in to the shop and walked over to the bread, I looked left and
right and when I put my hand on top of the shelf to pull the bread, the man on
other side said, “Hi son”. I left
it.
I came back to try again and then heard a whistle, so I left it again. Then I tried for a third time. When I took bread, this little lady asked me,
“Who are you buying this for, let’s walk together”. I thought, “Why is everybody after me?” This lady knew I was stealing and she told
me, never steal anymore. I came home
crying? I told my mother I was sorry. To steal was the sin but I forgot about my
actions and I thought my plan was good and that I was more clever than God.
When we sin, we think we are clever because no one will see me and it’s
fine and I’m enjoying it. We have to
stand firm in our sin. We are gold and
when we go through fire, we will never burn.
So stand firm in the fire. In a
physical fire, our body would get seriously burnt and we would need to go to
hospital. For temptation there is no
hospital but we have to persevere. That
is all you can do even if you call 111 for God, He will tell you
persevere. When you go through hardship,
people run from you and leave you alone and that is the hardest time in life to
find yourself abandoned and when you tell them the people, they believe you are
a complainer.
I watched this movie called Shrek.
A character on that movie was a donkey, and he could talk. Shrek became annoyed and told him, “stop it
donkey”. Sometimes your problems will
not interest other people, it will sound just like a cymbal in their ears. When people don’t have time to listen to you,
praise God and ask him to help you persevere.
Jesus said, “My time is arrived where My body will be given and My
blood seen”. All the disciples ran
away. He was tortured for many hours where
He was alone and He had to endure. Sometimes
people tell you persevere but you feel that you can’t take it anymore. Their encouragement to persevere will become
a discouragement. Jesus told us that
sometimes you call God for help and He won’t answer or intervene at that
time. As Jesus said, “Why have You have
forsaken me,” He is asking God, where are You?
Your problems will sometimes make you doubt God exists, “where is He, I
can’t see Him, He doesn’t answer my problem”.
That is the way God is baking you to make your inside soft and edible. You go through difficult times (fire) so your
body gets the proper heat and then everyone will choose your inside. People will say, “He is a nice guy” about
you.
If people described you in two words, you might be shocked. Some will hammer you while you believe you
are a good person because they only see the outside which is not well
cooked. When you are cooking bread and
the bread is not ready, if you put your finger on the bread, it will go through
the bread because it is not well cooked.
Yet, if the outside accepts to get burnt by the fire then all will be
perfect on the inside. But we don’t want
that. We want the inside to get cooked
so the outside can look beautiful. God
allows temptations on the outside.
If you are given money you will be happy and call it a blessing. But money can sometimes be a curse. Apreacher was saying he got $140M and IRD
asked for tax, the bank needed insurance. You have money but you have to pay
for money again. The more money I have,
the more I lose. The money decreased while
he wasn’t even using it. Money is not a
blessing.
God gave us a soul to look after.
The only way to be ready on day of resurrection is to accept your body
to go through fire. If you can’t say no
to satan or temptation and you can’t persevere, then your soul will
perish. That will be your responsibility.
Many people when they eat bread will use jam. Some will use honey or margarine. They will believe bread requires something
else. Sometimes those things will make
the bread lose its taste. You can have
your soul and body and when you add on top of it, it will start to lose taste
and God who sees the inside will start to worry. That’s when you hear people say, “In my
church we don’t believe the Old Testament is a part of the Word of God. The Old Testament is only for the old time.”
Yet the New Testament says that God is the same God that is there yesterday,
today and forever. Some people will say
according to my culture, or God will understand, I’m human but God also
understands He created you in His image and you are His son/daughter.
Ange, if I were to tell you to give me the life of your daughter or
give me a bag of jewellery, what would you answer. You’ll give me the bag of jewellery
because you love your child. God loves
us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us. He had a choice between keeping Jesus
and saving the world. Look how big God’s
love is to give His only son to die for you.
When you speak to God, you tell Him to shut up you are busy. Our lives are very short and we are called to
look after our bread. My body is small
and easy to manage. If you decide not to
sin, you won’t. If you decide to read
bible, you will read it. When people are
sick in hospital they will make effort to listen to God. Do you make yourself listen to God or do you
tell him you are too tired?
