“Search for Me”

Posted on by korgrocker

“But Jesus told them, “I will be with you only a little longer. Then I will return to the one who sent me. You will search for me but not find me. And you cannot go where I am going.” The Jewish leaders were puzzled by this statement. “Where is he planning to go?” they asked. “Is he thinking of leaving the country and going to the Jews in other lands? Maybe he will even teach the Greeks! What does he mean when he says, ‘You will search for me but not find me,’ and ‘You cannot go where I am going’?””
John 7:33-36 NLT

The Jewish leaders were perplexed because of the two statements made by Jesus. In their attempt to arrest Him, they were stopped in their tracks. “You will search for me but not find me” had just been said by a man who claimed to be the Son of God. If His claim about Himself was correct, they reasoned, why will He disappear and go somewhere they can’t? They rationalised their dilemma by suggesting that Jesus might be planning to leave Jerusalem and going to another land where the Jews or even a people they despised, such as the Greeks, lived. But then perhaps a niggly thought started to build in their minds. The prophet Jeremiah had written, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). If Jesus was in fact divine, as He claimed, then they would be able to search for Him and find Him. But if they refuted His claim then they were in danger of missing out on the promise penned by the prophet. 

Once again, Jesus was speaking about spiritual matters. Those who rejected Him and His teaching about the Kingdom of God had chosen a path that would fail to lead to eternal life with God. They would instead experience God’s judgement and an uncertain future beyond the grave. It took the Jewish people of His time much courage to be able to believe in Jesus, because His radical teaching, though building on much of the Jewish traditional theology, took a different course and re-established the importance of gaining a relationship with God. Such a message had always been there in the Hebrew Bible but had become eclipsed by a form of religion that majored on following rules and regulations rather than the One who brought them in the first place. In the same way it took much arrogance from the Jewish leaders to reject Jesus and His teaching, instead stating that Jesus was a fraud and should be killed to avoid Him polluting the people with a teaching that they did not approve of. 

So, Jesus quite rightly told the Jewish leaders that He was going somewhere – in fact, as we know, returning to His Heavenly home – a place that would not be available to the Jewish leaders because they had rejected the Messenger, the Son of God, sent by the very God they claimed to worship. There is no place in Heaven for anyone who has rejected Jesus. But we fast forward to 21st Century Planet Earth and find the same attitudes still prevalent today. Of course, Jesus does not stand before us in the flesh, but His message is still alive and well. His counter-cultural teachings about the Kingdom of God and the importance of repentance of sins and receiving God’s forgiveness still stand. And the words of Jesus still divide humanity into two camps – those who believe in Him and those who don’t. We pilgrims are assured of our salvation because we have embraced Jesus with all of our hearts, and we try our best to persuade others to make the right choice.

Dear Lord Jesus. Only You have the words of eternal life. Please help us to hear them clearly so that we can share them with others. In Your precious Name we pray. Amen. 

Trained by God

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then, midway through the festival, Jesus went up to the Temple and began to teach. The people were surprised when they heard him. “How does he know so much when he hasn’t been trained?” they asked. So Jesus told them, “My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me.””
John 7:14-16 NLT

There came the day when Jesus finally appeared in the Temple, and John recorded that He “began to teach”. As a reminder, Jesus appeared publicly half way through the Feast of Tabernacles, which was a week long festival of thanksgiving to God, for the harvest just completed and the feeding of the Israelite slaves in the wilderness so many years before. It was an essential event for the Jews, particularly the male contingent, so Jerusalem would have been mobbed by huge crowds. John also recorded that the “people were surprised when they heard Him” because of His lack of training. 

What was there about Jesus’ teaching that made the people think that way? There were probably several reasons. Perhaps His style of presentation was different to what the people were used to. His teaching material, though Scripturally based, would have had a different interpretation to that of the conventional text books. The miraculous signs he used to support His message would have wowed the crowd but, again, suggest to them that He had not been trained in the traditional Jewish ways. Jesus was honest and said it as it was. He made no attempt to woo the crowd with benign platitudes and a false praise. He regularly attacked the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders, even on one occasion saying that their father was not God but the devil. When they tried to trap Him with difficult questions, He confounded and silenced them. Jesus told the crowd that, like it or not, His message “is not [His] own; it comes from God who sent [Him]”.

Most church ministers, as we pilgrims know, are trained in some theological college or other. The people who are training for the ministry become acquainted with the culture and teaching of their particular denomination, learning the liturgies and Biblical interpretations. But there is a better way through the Holy Spirit who lives within us. Jesus told His disciples that He will lead us into all truth – ”When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future” (John 16:13). That’s all Jesus did. He told the people what His Father in Heaven told Him to say. We pilgrims have a duty to consult with God over what we should do and say. His Words may or may not agree with the teaching of our denominations but by being soundly Bible based then they will be truth. The words Jesus said cut across cultural sensitivities to declare and teach the truth after generations of misinterpretations or even untruths supposedly based on the Hebrew Bible. The truths we declare will increasingly impact the cultures in which we live, because they expose sin and evil, never a popular subject in a society without a relationship with God.

We pilgrims had embraced the Gospel, repented of our sins, and believe in Jesus 100%. We speak as God directs. There is no other way.

Dear Father God. We reach out to You today, trusting in You to lead and guide us through the minefields of life. Only You have the words of eternal life. Thank You. Amen.

The Words of Eternal Life

Posted on by korgrocker

“At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.””
John 6:66-69 NLT

In our fellowships and churches there can sometimes be a parting of ways between a member of the congregation and the leadership. It can be due to a simple administrative problem such as who does what, or someone falls out with another person,  or it could be over a doctrinal issue or some form of Biblical interpretation. Regarding the latter I know of a church where a member left because they disagreed with the Biblical stance over matters of sex and marriage. But all these situations may or may not be valid and I’m sure most divisions within the Christian real estate are avoidable, should there be a will to work out a solution.

However, in Jesus’ case, the disciples left Him because they could not accept His teaching. These men and women were having difficulty in accepting that Jesus was the Son of God, and that what He taught about His body and blood was true. Jesus said, “For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up” (John 6:44), implying that Father God sent Jesus to this world, and in the process He was going to attract people to support His Son. So perhaps the disciples who left Jesus were not the ones needed at that time. This is perhaps a contentious thought, because we know that the Gospel is available to all, but after there had been an exodus of disciples, Jesus turned to the twelve disciples He had chosen, and asked if they were going to leave too. But Peter responded with a timeless statement, “You have the words that give eternal life”. After all that had happened, the difficult (to them) teaching, the divinity claim, the consequent murmuring and complaining, and the mass exodus of Jesus’ followers, the Twelve disciples, later to become the Apostles, stood firm in their allegiance to Jesus. What would I have done, is a question I ask myself. But we note that not all the disciples other than the Twelve deserted Jesus – just “many” of them. There were still some who remain faithful. Men and women on the periphery doing what many do today, quietly getting on with a life of service to God, below the radar of public notice. People who have accepted Jesus, who believe in Him and His teaching, and who are doing their best to apply it in their own lives. 

Peter, speaking as the Twelve’s representative, stated two truths that must have gladdened Jesus’ heart. Peter said that the Disciples recognised Jesus’ divinity, and that they believed in Him. Because of that, the Disciples knew that Jesus was speaking words that, for those like them that believed them, will lead to a life spent with God.

We pilgrims too have declared that Jesus is the Son of God, that we believe in Him and we follow His teaching. The “words of eternal life” were not just for that generation but timelessly apply over the millennia right up until today and beyond. Paul wrote in Romans 10:9-10, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved”. The early disciples who left Jesus failed to make the declaration and ended up in a spiritual wilderness, but we pilgrims are in a privileged position, being of those who have declared and believed. 

Today we once again declare that Jesus is Lord and that he has the Words we need to hear for our future. And we tell others about our wonderful Saviour, that they too will have the same opportunity we have had.

Yes, Lord Jesus. We proclaim and declare that only Your have the words that will lead to eternal life. We give You all the glory today. Amen.

Spirit and Life

Posted on by korgrocker

“I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did (even though they ate the manna) but will live forever.” …  Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining, so he said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to heaven again? The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But some of you do not believe me.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning which ones didn’t believe, and he knew who would betray him.) Then he said, “That is why I said that people can’t come to me unless the Father gives them to me.””
John 6:58, 61-65 NLT

A lifetime of teaching about the Law had conditioned the early disciples into a mindset that was unable to accept any other teaching that might contradict their world view. While Jesus was performing miracles they were quite happy to be around Him, and the teaching He had so far given them, though different and challenging, was not so far away, perhaps, from the teaching they had received. And so they rationalised in their minds any minor differences as perhaps something mis-heard or misunderstood. Of course, there may have been some things that they were not entirely sure about, but they parked them in a corner of their minds, with the hope that all would become clear one day. But then Jesus started teaching about His body and blood. They couldn’t procrastinate any longer and they had to decide what they were going to do. Jesus’ divinity was sealed and out in the open when he said to them that He would return to His Heavenly home one day. And then there was Jesus’ statement that challenged their beliefs that eternal life would only be achieved by keeping the Law. But Jesus said, “Human effort accomplishes nothing”. 

In those days, the Holy Spirit had not been given – He didn’t come until the Day of Pentecost a few years later. So the Holy Spirit within them would not have been an experience they were aware of. So when Jesus said “the Spirit alone gives eternal life” it was one more anomaly that confused their thinking. So they complained. In their minds they had much to complain about, because Jesus was communicating a different message to what they were accustomed to, and what He said to them eclipsed the miraculous signs. 

Jesus doesn’t have any time for complainers. We pilgrims too will hear Biblical teaching that we will not fully understand. In fact, there is much in the Bible that we won’t understand until we get to Heaven. But then everything will become clear. The clouds will part and all will be revealed. Jesus gave some hard teaching that offended the Jewish mindset, but rather than believe in Him, and have faith that He was the Son of God, as He said, the disciples complained. The simple statement from Jesus that “the Spirit alone gives eternal life” was overlooked in the flurry of complaints. 

We pilgrims have an experience with God that includes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In His great sermon on the Day of Pentecost, a Spirit-filled Peter said, “ … Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Receiving the Holy Spirit is an integral part of our salvation experience. He is a gift from God, given to those who have repented of their sins, who have committed to follow Jesus, and who have been baptised. Sometimes we can’t help but feel sorry for those confused complainers around Jesus, but then, with the Son of God right there in front of them, and confronted by His miraculous signs, they surely should have stayed the course. Thankfully some did, and we will read about them later.

Perhaps we pilgrims will find something to complain about when we hear a message we don’t fully understand or even agree with. But the overriding message is confirmed, or otherwise, through the Holy Spirit within us. He brings life to our spirits while we are here on Planet Earth, and after that eternal life with God will be our experience. When we are confused or challenged, we mustn’t complain, but instead turn our eyes to the One who had called us to a life with God, our wonderful Saviour Jesus.

Dear Lord Jesus. Only You have the words of eternal life. We worship You today. Amen.

Spiritual Food

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked. So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did (even though they ate the manna) but will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.”
John 6:52-59 NLT

John recorded that the people listening to Jesus’ teaching were arguing with each other. This implied that some of them had grasped what He meant, and others, probably the majority, were still living in a physical world. Of course, Jesus was not teaching cannibalism. He was referring to the spiritual food that would be found through a relationship with Him. Flesh and blood, the very essence of who we are, has spiritual connotations as well. We of course know that as we eat meat we will digest it in our stomachs and the nutrients contained within the food will be absorbed into our bodies to provide the energy and the necessary components for a healthy life. There is a similar process with spiritual food, and Jesus is the source of all that our spirits will ever need. As we feed on Him, through His teachings, through God’s Word, through prayer, and so on, our spirits will find all that they need for life, and life that will extend into eternity at that.

Jesus made it clear that for those who depend only on physical foods, like their ancestors depending on manna in the wilderness, there would come a time when they would die. “Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died” (John 6:49). It does not matter what food we consume, even so called super foods, but one day our natural bodies will come to the end of their useful and natural lives. But our spirits will live forever, whether with Jesus or not. For all those who believe in Jesus and follow Him, they will experience eternal life. He said, “But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day”. Later, the Apostle Paul wrote, “That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). The alternative for those who don’t believe in Him, and who don’t feed on all the spiritual resources He possesses, is therefore death. But that death will still be somewhere eternal. 

This difficult to understand teaching from Jesus still hangs in the air today, because we live in a season of God’s grace, and His Son’s work continues through the Holy Spirit. We need to see beyond the physical connotations of what Jesus was saying through to the spiritual meaning. And we need to explore in increasing depth what it really means for our spirits to feed on Jesus’ body and blood. Jesus  said that He will raise up all those who have a relationship with Him “at the last day”. This does not mean the last day of the person’s physical life, but the day when all spirits will be resurrected and provided with a physical body. Paul wrote what would happen to believers – “And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). And to unbelievers we turn to Revelation 20:5,12, “This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.) … I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books”. 

So the Jews sitting in the pews in the synagogue in Capernaum were arguing. But have we pilgrims never argued with each other about teaching we have heard from a pulpit somewhere? Not often of course, but it does happen, and particularly when there is a new move of God sweeping over His church. But when something potentially contentious emerges in the spiritual domain, we have a simple remedy – turn to Jesus and feed on His body and blood. At such times we will find refreshing and new life for our spirits, and the issues causing the difficulty will fade away.

Dear Lord Jesus. Only You have the words of eternal life. Only You can lead us in the right paths and feed us all the nutrients we will ever need. We worship You today. Amen.

Eat the Bread

Posted on by korgrocker

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”
John 6:47-51 NLT

To the Jews, and most people on this planet, the thought of cannibalism is abhorrent. Feelings of disgust arise as we even reflect on such a thing. But as we unpick the meaning behind Jesus’ words, their importance soon emerges. Jesus told His listeners that He was “the bread of life” and He said that, unlike their ancestors who ate manna in the wilderness but still died, eating His bread would lead to eternal life. So we have the stark comparison between physical and spiritual foods. There are no physical foods that will prolong life to all eternity, even though there are those in certain industries who are trying their hardest to find products that will extend our natural lives even by a year to two. And it is true that a good diet with physical exercise will perhaps increase our life expectancies. Making our natural lives eternal has even become embroiled in fictional stories, such as in the book “She” by the Victorian writer H Rider Haggard. But in reality human beings will eventually die, but we all know that. 

Jesus compared Himself, as the bread from Heaven, with the manna that also came down from Heaven. He was the spiritual food and manna was the physical equivalent. One sustained the soul and the other the body. The Jewish teachers taught about the Scriptures in a detached sort of way. They expounded Biblical truths of course, and probably did so very capably. But Jesus’ teaching was different. He taught the people from a personal viewpoint. He didn’t just teach about spiritual food. He was the spiritual food. 

Jesus, in His claim to be the spiritual food from Heaven, was immediately misunderstood by those with an intransigent mindset that was unable to understand spiritual truths. And it is true today, with most people in Western society neglecting the importance of their spiritual lives. They try their hardest to compensate the yearnings within them with pursuits that might satisfy for a short time, but there is always a morning after the excesses of the night before. Through Isaiah, God said to the people on his day, “Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food” (Isaiah 55:2). 

We pilgrims must pay as much attention to our spirits as we do to our bodies, and through Jesus and His sacrifice at Calvary, a whole new vista opened up for us, taking us right into God’s presence and life with Him forever. So we do not neglect the spiritual food that came down from Heaven. It was so important that Jesus, at the Last Supper, gave His disciples the means to remember His life-giving presence. Luke recorded what happened, and what Jesus said, “He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you” (Luke 22:19-20). And as we remember all that Jesus has done for us, our spirits are refreshed and satisfied with the richest of food. 

Dear Lord Jesus. You are indeed the bread of Heaven, and our gratitude is eternal. We praise and worship You today. Amen.

The True Bread

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.” Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.””
John 6:32-35 NLT

Jesus is in the middle of a conversation with the Galileans, as He ministered in the region of Capernaum. On the east side of the Sea of Galilee He had fed them, providing full stomachs of bread and fish for five thousand men and their families. The news of this miracle had preceded Jesus and when He returned to the other side of the Sea, they hoped that He would feed them again, and again, and … “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.” But Jesus raised the conversation to considerations of spiritual food, by informing them that Father God in Heaven is offering people bread from Heaven that will sustain them to eternal life. Then came the message that the people were having difficulty in understanding – Jesus Himself was this bread from Heaven. Spiritual manna that would mean those who consumed it would never be hungry and thirsty again. Jesus said that He Himself was the Source of life for those that came to Him and believed in Him. 

Jesus’ message weaved a thread of gold throughout the Gospels. A timeless truth that was so profound but one that was largely rejected by a people soaked in Pharisaical tradition, the Law and its rules and regulations. The concept of believing in a Man, even if He was the Son of God, rather than adhering to the traditions and liturgy of the Jewish faith at that time, was something they couldn’t accept. But Jesus’ message that He was the Bread of life is still valid today in this season of grace in which we live. Everyone needs spiritual sustenance. In Jesus’ day, the people weren’t satisfied with the religion prevailing at that time, but their hardness of heart blinded them to the greatest message of hope this world has ever seen. Today, people try and feed their spirits through hedonistic pleasures that last for a brief time only to disappear with the morning dawn. If only they could see that the spiritual food they need is just there for the taking.

The psalmists wrote, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?” (Psalm 42:1-2). There were many Jews over the years who longed for spiritual food to satisfy their souls, to the extent that they even wrote about it. David found His source of life in His shepherd, the Lord Himself. He wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. … Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:1,6). A soul satisfied by the food that brings life, and life, full and eternal.

Dear Lord Jesus. Only You have the words if eternal life. Only You can satisfy the yearning within our souls. We praise You today. Amen.

“Spend Your Energy”

Posted on by korgrocker

“They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.””
John 6:25-27 NLT

The “crowd” finally caught up with Jesus on the “other side of the lake”. This would have been in the region around Capernaum, on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. Of course, by this time, numbers would have been much reduced because there wouldn’t have been enough boats to transport the five thousand men and their families across the lake, but we read in John 6:24 that they were “looking for Him”. But having found Him, the people were perplexed, because they couldn’t understand how He had got there so quickly. They knew that He wasn’t in the boat with the disciples, and there were no other boats available. But Jesus wasn’t one for a cosy chat, and He cut right across all the practical issues and questions to deliver a message about eternal life.

When He had been found by the people, Jesus immediately knew what they were after – more free food. Jesus used the phrase “I tell you the truth” to precede His analysis of the situation. This was a phrase He often used, and is worth taking note of as we read the Gospels and the words of Jesus. The old King James Version uses the phrase “verily, verily …”, something I’m sure we all remember. Jesus told His listeners, “you want to be with me because I fed you”. An understandable and accurate conclusion, but that wasn’t why He had come to Planet Earth. He had come to give the people eternal life. Something of much more value. 

Jesus told His listeners something that they probably weren’t so keen on. “Spend your energy seeking … eternal life”. To a people toiling to make a living from subsistence farming, such a message would have not gone down well. Because of the Fall, farming the ground was hard work. We read what God said to Adam in Genesis 3:17-18, “And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains”. The curse was still on the ground when Jesus came to Palestine, and producing sufficient food to feed a family all year round wasn’t easy. Additionally, in years of famine, perhaps caused by unfavourable weather patterns, people starved. 

But the question for us pilgrims today is about where we spend our energy. I’m sure we could all produce a long list of pastimes that people follow, and none of them involve seeking eternal life. Of course, God knows that we need to earn a living. But regardless of where the source of what we need for our natural lives is, Jesus’ message is the same today as it was two thousand or so years ago. “Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you”. Meditating on just this phrase will open a door to a wealth of possibilities, but the overriding question must be, “Is what I am doing of benefit to God’s Kingdom or the worldly kingdom around us”. Perhaps our priorities should follow a pattern of God, and our relationship with Him, first. Then our employment to provide for our physical needs, and the needs of our families. Next, devoting our spare time and energy in doing works to further God’s Kingdom, and, lastly, if we have any time left, spending it on recharging our own batteries. But we each must do what Jesus told His Jewish listeners on the Galilee shore, “[seek] the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you”.  How we do that can only be determined in prayer and our faith and relationship in and with God.

Dear God. Jesus came to show us the way to You. His message of life and hope still reverberates around the world today. Please open our ears to hear You more. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Dead Hear Jesus

Posted on by korgrocker

“And I assure you that the time is coming, indeed it’s here now, when the dead will hear my voice—the voice of the Son of God. And those who listen will live. The Father has life in himself, and he has granted that same life-giving power to his Son. And he has given him authority to judge everyone because he is the Son of Man.”
John 5:25-27 NLT

Jesus is still talking with the Jewish leaders. But even though this is God, talking to them through His Son Jesus, all the Jews could see was an ordinary man making some incredible claims. It is just about possible to see these leaders shaking their heads in disbelief. The language that Jesus used was clear and straightforward. He said that “the dead will hear [His] voice“. But to anyone listening they would have immediately associated the word “dead” with physical death, the state human beings end up in after their life leaves them. The dead body was then interred in a grave and would eventually have disappeared through decay. So, the Jewish leaders would have scoffed at Him, treating what Jesus was saying perhaps as a bit of a joke. Jesus was deadly serious though, because He was referring to spiritual death.

As He was out and about in the region of the Middle East, Jesus brought to the people the words about His Kingdom, where people live forever. There is no death in the Kingdom of God, and many people heard what He had to say. But how many people listened to Him? In this context Jesus was saying that when He was listened to, the listener would understand and believe Him, becoming alive in the process. Simple really. But isn’t it strange that people prefer to carry on in their old familiar ways instead of changing the course of their life, which will provide them with a better outcome. As an example, I know a lady, a committed Christian, who smokes. She has done so for many years, and it has badly affected her health, and continues to do so. Doctors have time and time again warned her about her smoking, but she continues to smoke, knowing the dangers, but unable to change and choose a better way.

We pilgrims have the opportunity to tell people about the “life-giving power” that Jesus has. But how many listen to what we have to say? To those of us in the Kingdom, the rejection we experience is inexplicable, but unsurprising, because to be a citizen in God’s Kingdom requires change. And people are more comfortable in staying where they are, in familiar territory, continuing in their lives of sin, than turning to God in repentance and receiving His life for the rest of their physical lives and into the future beyond the Great Divide. Imagine I put before a person two glasses, one containing water and the other a deadly poison, and if I told them what the contents were, which one would they choose to drink? The answer to the choice between accepting the Good News about God and His saving grace and living with Him forever, and eternal life spent with the devil and his angels in torment, is just as clear cut. But people are more likely to choose the latter rather than the former. 

The consequence of drinking the poison is physical death, and the consequence of rejecting the Gospel is eternal death. Jesus’ teaching was hard to listen to at times, and even harder to apply in their lives. There was an occasion when many of His disciples decided that they couldn’t follow Him anymore because of His teaching. In John 6:66-68 we read, “At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life””. Jesus said to the Jewish leaders, and through the Holy Spirit He is saying the same thing today, that if you listen to what He was, and is, saying, believing in Him, then You will live forever. There is no other way to Heaven.

‭‭Father God. There is a huge difference between hearing and listening. Please help us communicate Your words of eternal life to those around us, as we speak about Your love and grace. And we pray that You will open the ears of those that hear Your message so that they too will believe in You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

God, the Life Giver

Posted on by korgrocker

“For just as the Father gives life to those he raises from the dead, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants.”
John 5:21 NLT

Jesus was confronted by the Jewish leaders for telling a man healed by the Pool of Bethesda, and on the Sabbath, to ” … Pick up [his] mat and walk” (John 5:11b). Such an instruction was, to the Jews, a violation of the Law of Moses, which forbids working on the Sabbath. A petty, nit-picking, interpretation that overlooked, or ignored, the wonderful and life-changing healing of a man, paralysed for thirty eight years. But as we see at the start of John 5:19, “So Jesus explained…”. Jesus’ explanation was lengthy and detailed, and we don’t know how, in the end, it was received by the Jews. I suspect that they failed to understand, in line with the prophecy in Isaiah 6:9, “And he said, “Yes, go, and say to this people, ‘Listen carefully, but do not understand. Watch closely, but learn nothing.’“”

Jesus said to the Jews that His father “gives life to those he raises from the dead”. Did He mean physical or spiritual life? I believe that Jesus was explaining spiritual life because Jesus’ primary mission to Planet Earth was to bring abundant life. John 10:10b, ” … I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly“. In this context, we read what He said to Nicodemus in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life“. And to anyone who believes in Jesus, comes the God-given promise that they will never die. In effect, Jesus said that His Father, through His grace and love, brings about a miracle in the lives of spiritually dead people, who, when they believe in Him, can experience eternal life. 

We pilgrims are people who will never die. Yes, one day our mortal bodies, will die, but through God’s promise of eternal life, our spirits will live on. And then one day after that we will receive our new bodies, as promised and as we read in Philippians 3:21, “He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control”. We can read more about our new bodies in I Thessalonians 4. But the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:1-3, “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies”. Jesus told the Jewish leaders that His Father raises the spiritually dead people to eternal life with Him, and that He too gave the same life to anyone He wanted. Oh, and for good measure, He can raise physically dead people as well.

Jesus said, and as recorded in John 14:6, ” … I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me“. The only way in which human beings can experience being raised from the dead is through Jesus. It takes faith, that God will do what He has promised. But the alternative is a life snuffed out when we die, with our spirits heading for eternal life in a place where we don’t want to be. We can experience this new life now while we are still alive, through our growing relationship with God. We find that he is a real Person, who loves and cares for us. He helps us in times of difficulties. He leads and guides us in our journey through life. And we can share this hope we possess with those around us.

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for the life that You have given us. We look forward to the time when we will join You in Paradise. Thank You. Amen.