Do Not Live by Bread Alone

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

If you think you’re too ordinary to be used of God, listen closely. God is not going to do his final work through big-name evangelists or pastors. They alone won’t be able to handle the great moving of the Holy Spirit! The fact is that God is going to need every person who loves him, young and old, to carry out this work. These will be Christians who have been weaned from bread alone. Let me explain.

God said through Moses, “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).

Bread stands for all natural, material things necessary for this life: food, shelter, clothes, labor, wages, etc. Bread represents livelihood, those things we need that are not evil in themselves. Many Christians, however, live only for the things of this life. They live on bread alone.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). First, though, he said we were to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10). We are to focus first on God’s interests and pray for his will to be done. What have you been thinking about more than anything else these past six months? What has consumed most of your time and prayers? Has it been mostly bread issues, personal needs?

If you focus only on bread, then you have no life. You are living in a wilderness just as the children of Israel did. They rose daily and began crying for bread and their personal needs every day for forty years.

Beloved, that is boredom, drudgery! God never intended for his children to live like that. Instead, he told Israel through Moses, “You should be living by every word that proceeds out of my mouth. Yes, I told you I would give you bread, but don’t stop there. Move on. I have told you there is a land flowing with milk and honey, with rivers, trees, forests, green pastures; and I want that place for you.”

God is raising up a people who are focused on his will for this midnight hour. They are tired of living in a wilderness of mere survival. All they want is to know and do God’s will. Every member must be ready and prepared in heart because God is poised to release his great, final outpouring.