Wednesday 2 Oct 2013

Wednesday Reading: John 6:52-59

Key Verse: John 6:54
54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Devotion:
One of the great stumbling blocks between religions is the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; how people translate this, use it, apply it and govern it in their lives and their religions causes many a conflict. The Jews here at the time were bringing up this same conflict in their hearts as they begun to ask “how can we eat the flesh of this man and drink his blood”, after all have we not been told before that we should not drink the blood of anything living!

What they were struggling with was the true understanding of just who Jesus was and just what He was telling them to do. The actual flesh Christ was alluding to was not the muscles that were clinging to His bones but rather everything that He stood for: The promises made, the covenant of eternal life, the grace He displayed, the redemption offered because of His actions, His ways, the forgiving of our sin and the acceptance that He is God and that there is only one God. The eating of this flesh means the consuming of all of these items, believing that they are true and accepting them into your life! We need food and drink in order to maintain and build up our earthly bodies; we need this food and drink that Christ is offering in order to maintain and build up our spiritual bodies.

We take on the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus because we choose to believe in all that He has done and what He stands for. We trust in Him wholly because He is our one true Saviour, our Messiah, our King of Kings. Just as we may feel good after eating a good meal, we feel spiritually full after accepting Christ as our Saviour!

God may well supply us with things to allow us to survive physically when we need it; I have seen Him provide marvellous gifts of food and drink to people who need it just to survive. God may well give us places where we can find physical peace and rest but it is also God who is going to supply that spiritual and emotional peace and rest that we desire as well. God wants us to have this all so that we can be a more effective witness for Him.

Points to Ponder:
Do you expect things from God?

Do you realise how much He actually supplies?