SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/15/2016 7:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Pronouncement
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 6:51
Message of the verse: 51 “I am the
living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he
will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the
world is My flesh."”
“We have
been talking about the two truths that the Bible teaches about salvation for a
while as we studied the 6th chapter of John, and now we can see in
this passage along with when we looked at verse 35 and 40 the human
responsibility of salvation, and that is to believe, or in this analogy that
Jesus speaks of here that you eat of the bread that comes down from heaven,
something that now has been said by Jesus for the fifth time in this
discourse. Now the other said of the
truth of salvation Jesus spoke in verses 37, 39, 44, and will also speak of it
in verse 65.
“Now at this point I wish to give a rather long quote from a sermon that John MacArthur preached in 1970 which speaks of eating and how it applies to this verse. “First of all, eating is necessary if I'm going to get any benefit out of the food, right? I mean, I could have a nice feast in front of me and I could look at it and I could admire it, "Ah, it's lovely." And I could smell it and then I could analyze it. And then I could philosophize about it. Then I could eulogize its quality. Then I could handle it a little bit. Then I could be assured of its excellence. Then I could trust the guy who made it, cooked it up. But if I don't eat it, it doesn't do anything for me. So it is with spiritual food. So many people sitting around analyzing, eulogizing Jesus Christ, so many people going over all the qualities and all the virtues and they never eat. Knowing the truth, speculating about the truth, talking about the truth, believing in its goodness is going to do me no good, I must take it and eat, I must take Jesus Christ into my life.
“Another
thing about eating, eating is responding to a felt need and that need is called
hunger and it's immediately detectable. Some of you get it about two minutes
after twelve on Sunday morning. You don't need anybody to remind you that
you're hungry, you know when you're hungry, something happens inside of you.
And when you're hungry you eagerly eat. You can remember this. If you've ever been
stuffed full, not if, I know you have, stuffed full and then you see some food
and yik...it's repulsive. You know why? You have no need, you have no need and
the very thought of it is nauseating. So it is spiritually. You see, when a
sinner loves his sin, when he's stuffed full of the world and the flesh and he
thinks he's got all the answers and he's self-satisfied, then the thought of
the bread of life is nauseating, it's ridiculous, it's repulsive and he mocks
and disdains it. And in his self-satisfied spiritual bloatedness, he pushes
Christ away because he has no need. But then when a man is broken, when a man
is awakened to his lost condition, when a man faces the content of his
purposelessness, when he senses the void and the gnawing hunger in his heart
and the desire for reality, for peace, for real love, for meaning, for hope,
for security, that man is ready to eat the bread of life. That's what Jesus
said, "I can't do anything for you people that aren't sick."
“The
third thing about eating, eating implies an act of appropriation. You know,
when I eat I make the food my own, did you know that? That's true. Whatever you
eat becomes you. Like the guy said, "The doctor told me to watch my
stomach, so I'm getting it out there where I can see it." Whatever you put
in, whatever you put in becomes you. It doesn't matter what it is, it just
becomes more of you. There's a wonderful little scientific thing operating in
you called amino acids, there are 600 octo-decillion amino acids and whenever
you eat it all produces you-type flesh. As I've said before, if you ate nothing
but chicken you would never sprout feathers because the amino acids in your
body take into combination that which reproduces you. Some of you are living
examples of the tremendous potency of amino acids.
“Now the food that I eat becomes a part of me. The
food that I eat becomes what I am. And so it is spiritually. Christ may be
presented to me in all His beauty and glory, I might even respect His perfect
life, I might admire His wonderful person. I might be touched by His unselfish
love. I might even cry real tears over His death on the cross. But it's only
when I take Him in that He comes into me and dwells in me and becomes what I
am.
“There's another thing about eating. Eating is
personal. I've thought a lot often sitting in the office and being very busy or
doing something that I call my wife and I say, "Honey, I can't come home
for lunch, could you eat an extra sandwich for me?" But that doesn't work.
There's no such thing as eating by proxy. That's not going to do me any good.
Nobody else can eat for me. If I'm going to be nourished, I'm going to eat. So
it is spiritually. It doesn't do any good to sit around and watch other people
being nourished. I can't be nourished for you. Listen, if I could receive Jesus
Christ for you, for everybody, I'd do it. I can't. You've got to eat the bread
of life yourself. It's up to you. "But...says Jesus...if you do eat you'll
live forever." You'll live forever...what kind of life am I going to live?
Full life, beyond your wildest expectations and imaginations. And so, Jesus
says, "Here I am, bread, eat and live." It's amazing how people can
refuse such an offer but they do.”
Okay I think that we have enough to digest from
this quote and so we will continue eating from this passage in our next
SD. (No pun intended.) (Well perhaps it was intended.)
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Although
Jesus is not directly talking about eating from His Word here after one becomes
a believer that is where you get your spiritual food.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continuing to eat from the Word of God each day.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “By sending manna” (Exodus 16:1-18).
Today’s Bible question: “Why did God smite Herod?”
Answer in our next SD. 4/15/2016 7:45 AM
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