Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
The above passage is toward the end of the conversation Jesus had with the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. The disciples had left to get food for them all to eat. Jesus took up a conversation with a woman (taboo in those days) and a Samaritan woman, at that (even worse). The section has at least two very important points that Jesus makes for these, his followers. His first point to them is that He has food to eat that they are not seeing. They, of course, are focused on the temporal, their stomachs. Jesus is focused on the eternal, their souls. Jesus tells them that He has food and that food is to do the will of Him who sent me. Jesus takes spiritual nutrition over physical nutrition. He states that His hunger is to obey God’s Word for His life and to do God’s will. He is basically quoting to them the words of Moses:
Deuteronomy 8:3 (ESV)
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
These are the same words Jesus used when Satan temped Him to turn rocks into bread:
Luke 4:4 (ESV)
And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”
Jesus wanted to eat the bread of obedience. Obedience accomplishes praise to God and protection from Satan.
But the second truth is also powerful. He tells the disciples to lift up their eyes because it was not time to plant and harvest physical food but it was time plant and harvest spiritual food. The woman had left to get the town’s people to come and see Jesus. When Jesus tells the disciples to look up and see that the fields are white for harvest, He is referring to the coming people from the Samaritan village (v. 30). We are to be doing God’s will (obedience) to gather God’s harvest (transformation of the lives of others). Jesus is not thinking food right now. He is thinking speaking His Father’s Words to produce saved souls. That is our food. We, too, are to be seeking to obey God’s Word and work to gather God’s harvest. This type of food is better than food.
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