God loves His offspring. Mankind was created in the image of God. Man is destined to sit on the highest throne of the universe. However, this ascent is possible only through the Lord Jesus Christ. People remain in darkness and death until they eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood.

Christ is eternal Life. When we eat of Him and drink His blood we receive into ourselves the Divine creative Substance of God Almighty. As natural food builds muscle and bone, so the Word of God in Christ builds spiritual substance in our personality. We cannot live by natural food alone. We are so constituted that we must partake of the Substance of the Lord God or else the spiritual dimension of our personality will die.

Let us make sure we are not among those who are throwing away their life by ignoring the Bread whom God has given. Let us seek first the Kingdom of God, being aware that He who cannot lie has advised us that all the necessities of life will be added to us if we put Christ in first place in all that we think and do.

Earlier in these essays we described the three areas of redemption: salvation, sanctification and conquest. We stated that the three temptations of Christ correspond somewhat to the three areas of redemption.

The first area of redemption is salvation. The first temptation of Christ had to do with bread. The concept is that of survival.

The concern at this point is not that of resisting Satan and our fleshly nature; it is not that of ministry or of ruling with Christ as a king and priest. The concern is survival.

Each human being is faced with the problem of survival, not only in the present world but also in the world to come. Each person wants to be sure he will live and not die, he will be saved and not lost, he will be happy and not tormented.

Every person wants to be saved, to live forever in the Presence of God in a joyous, fruitful existence.

Christ says to each, "You cannot survive by bread alone. In order to survive you must eat the Word of God. I am the Bread from Heaven. Come to me and eat and drink. I will not turn you away. If you do not come to me you will continue in darkness and death."

Each human being makes his or her eternal decision: "Yes, I will come to Christ and live. Yes, I want to be blessed, guided, and nourished by the Words and the Life that continually are coming from the Father." Or, "No, I am receiving all I need from the world. I do not need or want Christ."

Such is the first testing of mankind.

To be continued.