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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
On hearing it, many of His
disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
Aware that His disciples
were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what
if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before! The Spirit gives life;
the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of
the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
For Jesus had known from
the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him.
He went on to say, “This
is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled
them.”
John 6:60-65
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
“God
is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
These words were not spoken to Jesus’
disciples or the crowd of Jews who had followed Him to Capernaum after the
miraculous feeding of the 5,000. They were spoken to the Samaritan woman Jesus
encountered at Jacob’s well, the same woman that Jesus spoke to about the
living Water He could provide that would well up inside any person to eternal
life, the Water the woman desired to have for herself.
Note in these words from John 4:24 that Jesus
makes it clear how God followers are to worship Him: in the Spirit and in
truth. The Good News Translation gives us further insight into what Jesus was
talking about:
“God is Spirit, and only by the power of His Spirit can people worship
Him as He really is.”
Spirituality is a term that is loosely
thrown around in discussing a lot of different religions but in Christianity it
literally means we worship in the Spirit of the God who made us and that is the
only way we can know that our worship is true.
In other words, we worship in truth when we
worship guided by God’s Spirit.
Now, hold that thought as we look at the
continuing conversation Jesus is having regarding His flesh and its connection
to those who are interested in eternal life. Look again at these words from the
latter stages of John 6:
On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a hard teaching.
Who can accept it?”
Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them,
“Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He
was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I
have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of
you who do not believe.”
For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe
and who would betray Him.
He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me
unless the Father has enabled them.” John
6:60-65
The Jews who followed Jesus had just been
grumbling because Jesus had told them that one had to eat His flesh and drink
His blood in order to have eternal life. As we saw yesterday, Jesus was
obviously talking figuratively not literally but the Jews didn’t recognize that
and thus their confusion and angst over Jesus’ words.
But as we see in our scripture for today,
the Jews weren’t the only ones who were a little baffled by what Jesus had
said. His disciples were also having difficulty with comprehending His words:
On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a hard teaching.
Who can accept it?”
Note that even Jesus’ most devoted, trusted
followers struggled with the teaching of their Master. And so Jesus tried once
again to address the mystification once and for all, knowing that some of those
present did not believe and even would betray Him (we know Judas was among the
disciples). Jesus responded:
“Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to
where He was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The
words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are
some of you who do not believe.”
Everyone was having such a hard time
believing Jesus, maybe so much that they had closed their hearts and minds to
receive what He was saying and allow God’s Spirit to bring understanding. Jesus
even wondered out loud if it was going to take Him having to ascend to heaven,
from where He has come, for people to believe in Him (if the disciples had
known that they would actually witness this later).
Jesus made it clear that the flesh would
perish but the Spirit would give life. Anyone who was with Him, body and soul,
would find their way to eternal life through the Spirit, not the flesh, for
Jesus made it clear that it was the Spirit that gives life, the very same
Spirit that was alive within the words He spoke because His words were from God
the Father who is Spirit.
If the Jews and disciples would only live a
Spirit-filled life, then things would have happened a lot easier for them as
believers for the Spirit would have always led them to a place of understanding,
a place where they would discern the truth and then comprehend it. They would
learn not through their own intellect but rather by the illumination of the
Spirit, the very Spirit of God the Father.
Do you allow the Spirit to help you gain
understanding of the scriptures when you study them? Or do you try and figure things out yourself,
ending up confused or maybe even grumbling about the teaching being hard as
Jesus’ disciples did?
My prayer is that we listen to the words of
Jesus here and allow them to change the way we approach the Word of God,
leading us to first rely on the Spirit of God before anything else. It’s what
will lead us to a Spirit-centered and Spirit-filled life, in a place where we
better grasp what the Lord is trying to convey to His people.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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