It is not the works we do for God, but the work God does for us that feeds forever with imperishable food. The work that feeds us with imperishable eternal food is no work at all on our part, but the work of God on and in us, namely that we believe in Jesus Christ whom the Father has sent. It's faith not works. And faith is not a work. Faith is the work of God in us.
Faith is what is left when there is nothing left to do.
To believe is to receive from God the way the body draws upon food, to soak up the vitalities and the energies of God's life as the body soaks up the vitalities and energies of the food that it eats. We no more work for the food that feeds forever than the five-thousand labored for the barley loaves and fishes. What sign do you do that we may see, and believe in you. The people wanted proof, a sign, a miracle, which was strange because many of them had been among the five thousand on the hillside. But faith in miracles demands a continual diet of newer and bigger miracles to feed it, and it shrivels and starves when the miracles quit coming.