December 15 - LD 50, Day 6: Eating Our Food Under the Cross

December 15 - LD 50, Day 6: Eating Our Food Under the Cross 
by Rev. Martyn McGeown

Galatians 3:14 - “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ…”

God will not bless the wicked—even in the good gifts He sends them. God will not curse His people—even in the afflictions He sends them. But how can we account for this difference? How can we confidently pray for daily bread with God’s blessing, when we are as wicked and depraved as the reprobate are? What right have we to expect that God would bless us?

The wicked man has no right to the bread which he receives. He lives as an unwelcome guest in God’s house, which is this world. God feeds such a man, but not out of love. The wicked man uses the good gifts of the world, but he has no right to them. Every morsel of bread which he eats he steals. Furthermore, the wicked man uses the goods of this world against God and in the service of sin. The wicked man is unthankful for the gifts of God, does not use them to serve his Creator, and does not even acknowledge the Giver of every good and perfect gift. Thus the wicked man demonstrates his awful wickedness and God is justified in condemning him.

But what about us? Do we not also sin as we eat and drink? Should we not therefore also expect to be cursed in our daily bread? The truth is that something as earthly and commonplace as our daily bread comes to us from the cross. We have no right to eat our bread with God’s blessing without the cross. We can eat our daily bread in good conscience only because our sins have been forgiven in the blood of our Saviour. Otherwise we would be in exactly the same position as the wicked man whose daily bread is a curse to him. What a humbling and sobering thought—I have this morsel of food, and I may eat it with the assurance of God’s blessing, not because I deserve it, not because I worked for it, but because Christ shed His blood for me to have it. “That we may thereby acknowledge [our Father] to be the only fountain of all good, and that neither our care nor industry, nor even Thy gifts, can profit us without Thy blessing.”

Christ was cursed so that we would be blessed—even in the eating of our daily bread. The effectual and powerful word of God’s wrath (God’s curse) was directed towards Christ. God pronounced evil upon Christ; God spoke against Christ; God spoke evil concerning Christ. The blessed Son of God was cursed because of our sins. Christ took upon Himself our guilt and placed Himself in the position of cursing. God turned His face against Christ and thrust Him away from Himself into unspeakable misery. Christ’s soul had to taste the bitterness of that curse. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that that hangeth on a tree” (Gal 3:13).

Think about that as you eat your daily bread. Then you will begin to understand how even our food comes to us from the cross of Christ. We eat under God’s blessing—Let us pray confidently for it.