The Devotional Jhn21

The Devotional

Comment: Can you remember those days before school, your favorite coloring book and the crayons. I can remember that if I pressed too hard on the book the crayon would break and life for the rest of those coloring sticks was in jeopardy. I would start breaking the rest of them until I would hear from my father, if he was home. “Boy! Why are you doing that? Stop it!” I do not recall what my mom might have said, so I think to myself does it matter what she said? As I recall I was afraid of my dad so it did matter what he said. So what does all of this have to do with the Holy Word of God? Most people today in our country have little or no fear of their parents, children in homes all across the U.S.A. run their own lives and ignore any commands of right and wrong from both parents. This ignorance is anchored in a national rejection of our Creator. Thus the political gods of the nation seek to control good and evil by enacting laws that agree and create continuing hate for God, producing violent young adults who invent evil. Romans 1:30 – All of this is rooted in being disobedient to parents, or as a prophet of old said in his last comments in the book of Judges. Judges 21:25 – In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Challenge: John 6:43-52 – No one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent Him draws that person to Jesus. Let me say right up front that this statement has nothing to do with election as some theologies seek to teach in that; only the elect will be saved as in a personal choice of who the elect might or might not be. It is true that only the elect will be saved, but the offer of being saved is not limited atonement in the way it is taught. The offer is and will always be: “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son; that WHO SO EVER believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” – John 3:16. 

John 3:16 is a promise from God Himself to all the world, it is such of a promise that even a child can accept and believe. When this acceptance by whoever will receive it is completed salvation from above is experienced in the soul of that individual; remember it is the soul that belongs to God, not our intellect. So this brings us to the words in John 6, all of which are of the Spirit of God that speaks to our soul… not our intellect and if not our intellect, then what? Grace (God’s provision of Jesus) Faith, (God’s path for you and me to believe in Jesus). For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, Ephesians 2:8

Jesus initiates this discourse by reflecting on Isaiah’s message. We will break into the message at Isaiah 52:7 and continue at least to Isaiah 54:13. God the Father proclaims peace to the world through the suffering, the death and the resurrection of His Son. How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news. It is God who reigns, Psalm 93:1 – this message is as true today as it was in the beginning, if we are to be drawn by God, we must be willing to hear the message that draws us to Him. Romans 10:14-15, the sharing of this message is beautiful.

John 6:44-48 – No one has seen God at any time, but Jesus the Son of God who came to earth, He has proclaimed Him and truly, anyone who believes the proclamation of Jesus, Jesus is the Revelation of God to mankind will experience everlasting life. We daily eat bread to maintain our physical needs, but the bread for our soul is starved if we do not know God. Jesus clearly is the bread of life for our soul. Physical food is not required after our physical body dies, the manna of life is no longer needed.

There is another bread from heaven, Jesus identifies this Bread as Himself, this Bread is from heaven to feed our soul which lives forever, this Bread does not die and neither does the soul. Thus if you do not have this TRUTH in your soul, then it shall die, starved from the Person of Jesus Christ. John 6:51 – I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I will give him is my flesh (destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.) John 2:13-22.

The people quarreled among themselves concerning every statement Jesus made about the kingdom of God and if you seek to understand Jesus’s messages about the kingdom of God with your intellect you too will quarrel. We must therefore trust in Jesus the way that God provides. By grace through faith we can know and understand that in the eating and drinking of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, we are coming to faith in God by the Spirit and not by any human effort or work.