Christ's Intimacy with the Father (John 4:31-34)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/15/2016 12:58 PM

My Worship Time                                                          Focus:  Christ’s Intimacy With the Father

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 4:31-34

Message of the verses:  “31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." 32 But He said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples were saying to one another, "No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?" 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.”

When people think about eating they may be thinking about their favorite foods and just thinking about them can cause hunger pains to come upon them.  I remember after I retired from my job that I worked at for 35 years and I needed some direction on what the Lord would have me to do after that and so I seemed to be led by the Lord too fast for a while and so I began to read about fasting for physical health to find out what to expect when I began the fast.  What I found out was that after three days without food that you are not hungry at all, and that came to be true.  I began to limit myself to two meals a day for a few weeks and then one meal a day for a while and the day before I began the fast I only had one meal and so once the fast began I was not hungry at all.  Now why do I write about this fasting that I did?  Well when you look at this passage you find that Jesus had just walked around 20 miles to get to the place in Samaria and He had been talking to this woman at the well about how she can become a believer and then we read that His disciples came and was asking Him to eat, but at this point it was like the only thing on His mind was doing the Father’s will and so this caused Him not to hunger for physical food.  One of the purposes for fasting should not only be for physical reasons, but first for spiritual reasons and when you fast for spiritual reasons you mind is on what you are fasting about.  Think about what we learned when we studied the book of Ester and how Ester told her uncle to fast and pray about her going into see the king that the king first of all would not kill her even though she was the queen, but was not suppose to see him unless he called her into seeing him.  Next the fast was about the problem that was going on, and that was that there was a person who had persuaded the king to kill all of the Jews, so as Ester and her uncle and others began to fast and seek the Lord about these matters they were only thinking about those matters and not about food.

Another thing needed to me mentioned here is that we can see the Lord’s humanity for He was actually in need of food as were His disciples after their long difficult walk.  This is good to understand about our Lord that He got hungry just like we do and thirsty just like we do.  Another thing we need to realize is that Jesus had an agenda from His Father to accomplish while He was on earth, especially during the three years of His ministry beginning with His baptism.  As we read and study in the book of John, and we also studied the book of Mark a few years ago, we can see that Jesus follows this agenda that He has been given by His Father which would led Him to the cross to take our place there to pay the penalty for our sins, but in the mean time Jesus was going along doing the things that He was to do before He got to the cross, remember when we began this chapter we see that the Lord had to go through Samaria. Now as He was doing the Father will it caused Him to say to His disciples “I have food to eat that you do not know about,” and then “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.”  This is surely speaking of spiritual food and while doing this He did not hunger for physical food at this time.  This was a spiritual lesson that He was teaching His disciples. 

John MacArthur concludes “Throughout His ministry, Jesus walked in perfect intimacy with His Father.  He lived in complete accordance with the Father’s will until His cry of triumph from the cross ‘It is finished!’ (19:30), marked the accomplishment of His mission on earth.  Submitting to the Father was Jesus’ constant devotion, consummate joy, and true sustenance.”

Spiritual meaning for my life today: Learning to do the Father’s will is a part of growing spiritually and this is one of the things that I want to learn and to do.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to grow in the Lord.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Blood.”

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said ‘Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightiest be bound to afflict thee’?”  

Answer in our next SD.

2/15/2016 1:26 PM