_TAKE AND EAT_
JOHN vi. 52-63.
There is, first of all, _appropriation_. I must "stretch out" "lame hands
of faith"; and "take" before I "eat." In the lives of many Christians
there is too much asking and too little taking. If it were only rightly
regarded, prayer is companionship as well as petition, and companionship
is literally significant of the sharing of bread. In every season of
communion a part must be assigned to the taking of the things for which we
have prayed. "_Receive ye_ the Holy Ghost."
And there is _assimilation_. We must "eat" as well as "take." It is in the
exercises of obedience that we digest and incorporate the bread of life.
Without our obedience the living Lord never becomes "part of ourselves."
We never "become one in the bundle of life" with the Lord our God. And
truth which is not assimilated becomes a drug. Instead of being a "savour
of life unto life," it becomes a "savour of death unto death."
And there is _vitalization_. The assimilated bread of life makes
everything alive. Every faculty in my being feels the touch of divine
inspiration. It is native bread for native power, and everything is
renewed.