Jesus Is The Bread Of Life

When Jesus revealed that He is the Bread of Life, He eliminated the uncommitted and forced His ministry to take a sudden turn.

Jesus Is The Bread Of Life

Harmony Of The Gospels Series-21, Jn 6:25-69

For more information about Jesus see these books on the History of Jesus Christ.

Remember how excited you were when you first received Jesus? I remember reading all the stories about His followers enduring all kinds of hardships and struggles, and thinking, 'I'm sure glad I live when I do, with all those struggles behind us.' I lived in a kind of fairy-tale world where everyone who professed Christianity was good and reliable and nobody had to get uncomfortable. After all, bad things didn't happen to Christians any more, right? This world was a figment of my imagination. How 'bout you? That illusion was ripped from me the week I started actually serving God. Instead of praising God whenever we face trials of any kind, most of us go into "why me" mode. Have you ever had stuff go wrong, bad things happen, and wonder why? After a number of years I finally began to notice something. There's a huge crowd of people that gather around anything God is doing. They're curious or scared or nosy, whatever their reason, they're not committed! As soon as they reach the end of their comfort level, as soon as the road gets a little bumpy, they're outa' here. It's normal to feel abandoned at that point, but now we have reason to be excited when we see people abandoning the call. Our lesson today will tell us why. If you read John 6:25-69, you've already got an idea why. If not, stop and read it now. You can get more information from these top books about Jesus, the Bread of Life. In this episode, Jesus teaches us a lesson that's as powerful today as it was then.

Those who have truly come to Jesus are willing to endure hardship.
As I mentioned, it starts with…

1. The Crowd: Vs 25-33 As John told the story; the day before, Jesus had miraculously fed 5,000 men. Since only the men were counted, the crowd actually fed could have been 15,000 or more. Many of these, having been well fed yesterday, decided to try to find Jesus and get another meal today. It seems from the dialog, they weren't the least bit interested in His mission. They were Faithless, Frustrating and Focused on food. Kinda' like people today. Consumers! Their focus was their appetite. In much of the modern world, we're consumers, too. Sure, we consume food and clothes, electronics and automobiles, but we're more than consumers of products. We're a consumer culture. God forbid we should ever have to entertain ourselves. We have a thousand entertainment choices to choose from, many of them free, as long as we keep answering the advertisement. I really find nothing wrong with this. Praise God we have a system that supports such a life. I wish everybody did. The problem comes when we begin to look at the Lord as a consumer good. This is when we start to look like the crowd Jesus was talking to. I know a woman who chose a church because it had a good program for 2-year-olds.

Nowadays, "Christian" life is more defined by what's done for Christians than by them.

Biblical discipleship is almost unheard of. Most have replaced it with "get-acquainted sessions" where the newcomer is told about all the services designed to meet their every "spiritual" desire. One missionary I know described church in the industrialized world as a place where rich people hire someone to be Christian for them. They call their employee "pastor". I'm sad to report many pastors are going along. They're afraid to lose any "giving units" for fear they can't pay the professional "worshipers" any more. Parents who can't be bothered to learn about Jesus, expect a stranger to teach their children how to act "Christian". According to statistics; divorce, adultery, theft, fraud and dishonesty are as common among people calling themselves "Christian" as anyone else. Why? Because we're so concerned with the image of church success that we don't care about the real goal of Christianity, being transformed and dependent upon Jesus. That brings us to the call.

2. The Call Vs 34-65 The call was distinguished by Who did the calling (the Father, vs 37, 44) and by who answered (the called, vs 29, 35, 40, 45, 47, etc.). The Lord calls and those who truly answer are the "called". The trick is in what "called" (truly coming to Jesus) means. You see, there must have been thousands in the crowd from the previous day who came to Jesus for food. When Jesus said, "He who comes to me" vs 35, He wasn't talking about those looking to be served; served food or, today, served Sunday School and "canned" worship. Jesus was talking about those precious few who remained after a serious "culling" process. Those are the ones who have truly come to Jesus.

Continued at Jesus Is The Bread Of Life-2

Jesus Is The Bread Of Life

I'm honored that you've allowed me to be a part of your Christian life. Please return often for fellowship, study and prayer. Thank you very much for visiting.

Love & Hugs,
Glen

When Jesus revealed that He is the Bread of Life, He eliminated the uncommitted and forced His ministry to take a sudden turn.