What does it mean to Feast on Jesus?

What does it mean to feast on Jesus?
Simply put, it means believing in Jesus for your complete and total satisfaction. 

Much more difficult is actually realizing and living that reality, especially in the face of the world that wants you to find complete and total satisfaction in anything but Jesus. 

I’ll quote words from John Piper, in his book What is Saving Grace:* 

Believing Is Spiritual Drinking and Eating 

The fact that Jesus spoke of himself as living water to be drunk (John 4:10–14; 6:35), and bread from heaven to be eaten (6:41, 48, 51), and the light of the world to be not just seen but loved (3:19) points to a kind of believing that is like eating the best food, and drinking the most satisfying water, and loving the most glorious light (cf. John 1:14). 

In John 6:35–37, Jesus says: 

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 

The parallel in 6:35 between coming so as not to hunger and believing so as not to thirst tells us that Jesus saw this believing as coming, and this coming as believing. We see the parallel again in 6:36–37. Jesus observes in verse 36 that in spite of seeing him, some do not believe. Then in verse 37, he gives the underlying reason for this: “All [and only those] that the Father gives me will come to me.” In other words, they did not believe because only those whom the Father has “given” to Jesus will “come.” So not coming to Jesus in verse 37 is interchangeable with not believing in verse 36. 

The very same sequence of thought comes out in John 6:64–65. Jesus says: 

“There are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 

Believing Is Finding the Soul’s Satisfaction in Jesus as Living Water

In other words, the explanation for why some do not believe is that “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” The gift of coming is experienced as believing.

Believing is the heart’s coming to Jesus in such a way that the soul finds the end of its quest for satisfaction. I use the word satisfaction because, even though Jesus said his aim was their joy (John 15:11; 17:13), we don’t usually describe the effect of water and bread as joy. We say of a cold drink on a hot day, “That was satisfying.” That is the analogy Jesus used. And if anything, the satisfaction of such a drink in the first century, when drinkable water was more precious, would have even been greater.

Do you want to feast on Jesus? Do you want to believe in Jesus in a way that satisfies like a cold drink on a hot exhausting day? It simply starts with praying and asking God to do the work of rending your heart towards his. 

A next step would be reading and applying Scripture. If you’re reading this after Easter 2025, join us as we start our series on Sundays through the Gospel of Mark, which gives the most straightforward explanation of Jesus. 

Rooting for you, 
Brookes

*you can download this great resource for free from DesiringGod.com. I recommend you download or purchase this great resource.