Jesus is the Bread of Life. The Word, Jesus, nourishes my soul.
Believers must take in the Word in order to feed their souls and grow more like Christ. Beyond providing true bread from heaven, Jesus, God has done something very special for us. A new covenant.
Look closely at the head and heart of the believer in the mandala.
The prophet Jeremiah writes, 31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jeremiah 31:31-33.
In the mandala, God’s word is written on the scroll, and it is also written on the heart of the believer.
In the New Testament, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes in chapter 10,
15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”
The punchline comes in the following verse of each of the two passages above. “…and I will remember their sin no more.” Jeremiah 31:34. Again, in Hebrews 10:17, we have “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Yes, it is worth repeating.
Believers, you are forgiven. You are a clean place. You are a suitable place for the Holy Spirit to reside. The Spirit came upon people in the Old Testament for specific tasks, but we have the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 24/7.
The Holy Spirit is a giver. The Spirit gives us the desire to study Scripture and the ability to understand Scripture. The Spirit gives us the power to allow God’s will to penetrate our minds and our hearts. The Holy Spirit that dwells within us gives us the power to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.