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You are here: Home / Devotions / TAKE 5–JULY 29, 2017

TAKE 5–JULY 29, 2017

July 29, 2017 by beardonnam Leave a Comment

“Therefore the Jews started complaining about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’? ” Jesus answered them, “Stop complaining among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets: And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to Me — not that anyone has seen the Father except the One who is from God. He has seen the Father. “I assure you: Anyone who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” John 6:41‭-‬51

Can anyone from your “neck of the woods” be great? Apparently, no one from Jesus’ hometown could be, or at least that wasn’t the expectation! Jesus had just told the crowds who He had miraculously fed the day before and who now were seeking more food that He IS THE BREAD OF LIFE, and that partaking of Him would produce a satisfaction that would trump all other all appetites for life!

So Jesus introduces Himself as the Bread of the Life and the Jewish religous leaders (here called the “Jews”) get all upset saying, “Is this is Jesus, Joseph’s Son? And, whats-her-name, I can’t really place her name right now, but you know, His mom-you’ve seen her around-we know her too!” (vs 42) How can THIS GUY claim to be the Bread of Life, WHO’S COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN?
Now A LOT of the time when the Religous Leaders challenged or complained about Jesus, their alterior motive was jeolously about the notoriety and following Jesus was gaining with the miracles He was doing. At times it appeared they REALLY WERE fearful that He was the Messiah and that they had been wrong about their expectations of Who Messiah would be. At any rate, WITH CERTAINTY, they seemed featful of losing control of the religous system! It seems to me that this was the case here because Jesus tells them, “stop griping” about where I say I’m from . . . NO ONE will follow me if My Father God doesn’t draw them! He then goes on to explain this statement from THEIR PERSPECTIVE!

The Jews were devote followers of Moses and his writings called the Torah or Law. Jesus, basically is saying that the same Father Who draws people to Himself through Moses snd the Old Testement prophets, also draws people to Jesus, the Bread of Life! Likrwise, He reasons with them that since they don’t or won’t believe Him, they obviously didnt believe Moses or the prophets either, since they wrote about Him!

So, just as God had given their ancestors manna- bread from heaven- to sustain them, God had given Him- the Bread of Life- to give them eternal life and they would miss this opportunity because though they believed in God, they only believed He could and would only move according to THEIR expectations, which leads right back to their reasons to want to oppose Him, even though His miracles proved thay He was sent from God!
So what about us? God WANTS to move in our lives! Will we allow Him to, or will we set boundries on what He can do or try to dictate to Him HOW or WHEN He can move!

Think about it!

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