FRESH START TODAY - Food or Spiritual - 2-13-2014

FRESH START TODAY – FOOD or SPIRITUAL? – 2-13-2014 By: Lenni Nordloh The past few weeks a group of ladies have been studying the Book of John that I have facilitated. It has been a blessing to witness what the Lord is doing through their lives. One precious soul has received the gift of Salvation by trusting Jesus as her Lord and Savior. She will be baptized this next Sunday as a witness of her commitment to the Lord. Reviewing what we will read next week I thought that it would be interesting to write a devotional due to the context. These Scriptures could be difficult to truly understand without the power of the Holy Spirit giving us His wisdom. John 6:43-52, "Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" NIV Jesus spoke many times using the physical that people understand to elaborate the truth of the wisdom that comes from God. People are visual and often times do not grasp the deeper truth of what God reveals to His people. What is food to us? We see, we taste and we eat. Food sustains our physical bodies. Remember that there is a saying, “if you are born once, you die twice”, or “you can be born twice and then only die once.” This is also a physical statement, but there is Spiritual Wisdom in all that is being said. Jesus spoke Spiritual Wisdom and only those that the Father draws to Jesus will understand the real meaning. Jesus will raise the true believers on the last day. When will be the last day? That is what is wonderful about Jesus and His wisdom. He knows all things, sees all things and prepares us to be with Him forever. We do not need to know the last day, but trust Jesus at His word. The Prophets who will be taught by God and listens to the Father, will go to Jesus. Jesus has the words that come from God, the Father. Jesus was with the Father from the beginning of time, because Jesus and the Father are one. We who have learned this truth will have everlasting life. Jesus said that He was the Bread of Life. He said earlier in the Gospel of John that He was the Living Water. Bread and water is what sustains our physical bodies, but the belief in Jesus, the Bread of Life and Living Water gives strength to our Spiritual life. Jesus came to us from Heaven to teach us this truth. There is more to life then just our physical breathing, eating and existing. We have a purpose and that is to live in the wisdom that Jesus was teaching. We do not eat the flesh of Jesus nor do we drink His blood. He was clearly stating that we must consume Him and what He teaching to sustain our Spiritual Lives. He is what gives life eternal. Our eternal life began the moment we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. We were born again, which is the Spiritual birth, and we will only die once, which is the physical death. We will live forever with our Heavenly Father. Jesus was telling His disciples that He was going to give up His flesh and blood for the life of the world. Dear ones, we have a Savior that loves us passionately and wants to be with us every day. The Jews did not understand that Jesus spoke about Spiritual matters only. The Laws that Moses received were Spiritual Laws, too, but people have not understood the Spiritual Truth of those Laws. Take a pencil and hold it close to your eyes. What do you see when you are just looking at the pencil? Everything behind the pencil becomes blurred, doesn’t it? Hold it again at arms length. Now what do you see? The Holy Spirit of God reveals a deeper truth if we look at the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. We need to look beyond the physical, or traditions, to see Spiritual truth.