Christ communes with an individual and gives him the living bread to bring to a person or group of people. The living bread is the new covenant fulfillment of the showbread of the Holy Place. It must be fresh. It must be renewed frequently and regularly. It is the Bread of the Presence of the Lord.

The person doing the ministering must not feed the people moldy food he was given years ago. An older Christian can share with younger Christians his experiences and the lessons he has learned throughout his life in Christ. But in order to present the living bread, which is Christ, the ministering Christian must be in vital contact with the Lord.

The only time the bread of God is available to us is when the living Lord Jesus Christ—not the record of history but He who is alive now—comes in the Holy Spirit to meet some kind of need in mankind. The need may be milk for a young Christian or strong meat for saint. It may be strength for someone in despair or wisdom for a perplexed soul.

When the prayer ascends to the Father He sends the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing (Psalms 145:16).

It is pleasing to the Father that the needed help come through human ministry. In this way He binds people together in love, for God is especially pleased when people dwell together in harmony and love. In terms of the need of the moment, Christ looks about for a believer, a member of His Body, through whom He can meet the specific need.

If Christ can find a suitable vessel He will give him of His own body and blood to meet the spiritual or physical need. His body and blood are eternal life (John 6:27-58 is clear on this point). In bringing the body and blood, a member of the Body of Christ is holding forth the Bread of God for the life of the peoples of the earth. He is ministering the fruit and leaves of the tree of life that bring everlasting life and healing to mankind.

This is the showbread. There is no eternal life in the world apart from the body and blood of Christ.

Spiritually speaking, we must drink the blood of Christ as we eat His flesh. Jesus declared, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). It was not long after this statement that "many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him."

As we read the seventeenth chapter of Leviticus we find that the drinking of blood is sternly prohibited:

And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. (Leviticus 17:10)

It is not surprising that some of Jesus' disciples left.

Leviticus teaches us that the life of the flesh is in the blood.

For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off. (Leviticus 17:14)

To be continued.