The True Bread

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“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 Adrian Clark

“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 Adrian Clark

“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 Adrian Clark

“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.

The Second Sign

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee after coming from Judea. Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.”
John 4:54-5:1 NLT

A miracle happened when Jesus turned water into wine, and here John records that the healing of the government official’s son was the second that had taken place in Galilee. Both events were, as John wrote, miraculous occasions, inexplicable to anyone taking them at face value, but there will always be someone who attempts to explain them away by attributing to them some natural cause. Perhaps, such people say, the healing of the official’s son was a coincidence. The boy might have been very sick when his father decided to journey to find Jesus, but in the meantime he became well through the normal course of an illness, in which some people get better and others died. Perhaps the water turned into wine was some form of hoax perpetrated by the bridegroom or someone else at the wedding reception. We will always be able to find the sceptics and deniers, people who don’t want to believe what they see or hear, because to do so would result in them having to abandon their world view and take on board something that will change and even transform their lives. These people are very comfortable with their sinful lives, for now.

Jesus said, as recorded in John 4:48, “ … Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?” What was there about the Galileans that seemed to indicate that they didn’t believe Jesus’ message on its own? Was Jesus a bit exasperated that His words of eternal life were rejected until He reinforced them with a miracle or two? After all, He had a tremendous reception in Sychar, and the people there believed what He said, not what He did. John 4:42, “Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Saviour of the world.“”

The people in Jesus’ day had the benefit of the Son of God living with them. He walked amongst the Jewish people spreading His message of hope about the Kingdom of God. He preached in their synagogues, He taught in the fields and educated His disciples as they journeyed from one place to another. And yet, most people He met had a problem believing what He said. But before we condemn them, we need to walk in their shoes. If someone came to our societies today, even Jesus Himself, preaching the message that Jesus preached, what reception would they get? It would be even more difficult today, because the spirit of the age promotes any message, any ideology, that feels good. Anything that satisfies the sinful yearnings within human beings. So people today will reject any message that confronts their sin, even if their rejection of it comes with a warning that hell beckons, just over the horizons of their lives. There is a man who lives close by who I shared the Gospel with, and his response was that he would be taking part in the “big party downstairs”. Not for him a life with God in Heaven. Such a response staggered me, because its intensity in its rejection of the love of God was basically a self-imposed death sentence.

Do miracles happen today? There are many that have been documented, but still most people choose to reject the Gospel. They reject even the resurrection of the Man who was cruelly put to death on a Roman cross, perhaps the biggest miracle that this world has ever seen. But miracles or not, there is only one way to Heaven and that is through repentance and believing in Jesus. Our Heavenly Father loved the people He created so much that He was prepared to sacrifice His only Son to save them from the consequences of their sins. The people of Galilee had a choice, and that same choice is still hanging in the air, for now. It won’t be there for ever, because one day we will die and the option of believing in Jesus will die with us. We pilgrims have an opportunity to tell others about the wonderful future people can have, both in this life and beyond. And every time someone we tell about Jesus decides to believe in Him, they hold a party in Heaven. There is nothing more important in this life than the Good News brought to this world by the Son of God.

Dear Father God. All we can do is to worship You, with grateful hearts. Amen.

Get Your Husband

Posted on by Adrian Clark

““Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You’re right You don’t have a husband— for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!””
John 4:16-18 NLT

The woman at the well seemed to have a problem with men. To be in the sixth relationship is going some, even by modern standards. The fact that she came to draw water on her own probably indicated that the other women in the village wanted nothing to do with her. For all we know, she had a local reputation for being a bit of a marriage wrecker. But how did Jesus know about her private life? It wouldn’t have been posted on the local Facebook page, or mentioned in a flyer pinned to the wall above the well. We can try and make sense of why she was so active in husband recycling, and presumably psychiatrists would have a selection of answers to her problem, but none of this matters very much. What does matter is that Jesus grabbed her attention and lifted her thoughts out of the drudgery of drawing water and forced her to consider her situation.

Jesus, of course, was in constant communication with His Father. We read in John 5:19-20, “So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished“. So communicating with His father through the power of the Spirit, Jesus would have known who the woman at the well really was. He saw right into her very soul and put His finger on the main issue driving, and destroying, her life. And by doing so He laid the foundation for a revival that was soon to happen in that Samaritan village. An uncomfortable and embarrassing experience for the woman led to her life, and the lives of others, being transformed.

We pilgrims also have access to situations where, through the Holy Spirit, a prophetic word, a word of knowledge, can expose the truth and transform the life of a sinner. We have a “still small voice” within us that we need to listen carefully to. It needs practice to hear it, but the Holy Spirit within us constantly speaks. A question we must often ask is, “What do You want me to know about this person, or say to them, Lord?” We pray for that insight that will unlock an otherwise lifeless conversation. And at the start of a day we pray for divine encounters, or opportunities to share the Good News with those around us, with people trapped in hopeless situations like the woman at the well. 

Dear Father God. We pray today for a fresh infilling of Your Spirit, revitalising us and equipping us for the day ahead. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

His Testimony

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“He testifies about what he has seen and heard, but how few believe what he tells them! Anyone who accepts his testimony can affirm that God is true. For he is sent by God. He speaks God’s words, for God gives him the Spirit without limit.”
John 3:32-34 NLT

The importance of having a testimony is, without doubt, something that every Christian should take note of. As a minimum, we have that date, even a time of day, when we made that momentous decision to follow Jesus and to believe His testimony that He was (and still is) the Son of God. We add to our testimonies those occasions when God blessed us, healed us, helped us – the list of divine interventions can be endless. Often we don’t know what God is doing for us behind the scenes, so we need to be open and sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s ministry. There are some big things that God has done for me, but there are also times when He showed favour apparently against the odds. That time when a car crash of a job interview still resulted in an offer of employment. The beautiful young girl who, by a series of coincidences, appeared in my life, and who is now my wife of many years. We must always be ready with a testimony so that we have an answer for those who ask. 1 Peter 3:15, “Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it”. 

Jesus had a testimony but when He testified about “what he [had] seen and heard“, only a few believed Him. Only a few, even though He spoke about God, their Heavenly Father. Isn’t it strange that people in general only believe what they want to believe. If what they are hearing doesn’t fit in with their world view then they refuse to believe it. Speaking about the “man of lawlessness”, Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies. Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth“. Jesus had the words of eternal life, words of truth, words that, if applied in their lives, would ensure the people’s eternal life with God in Heaven, and yet they refused to believe them.

The devil is a master of lies and in every generation he concocts evil ideologies that are based on his lies. So just now in 21st Century society, he has propagated a raft of lies over sexuality and gender. So impressionable people have been deluded to think that they can change their gender. Homosexuals think that they can still become a Christian while practising their same sex acts. Politicians here in Scotland are now trying to introduce laws that will criminalise a pastor praying for someone who has gone to them asking for advice over their gender confusion. All actions emanating from lies planted in people’s hearts by the devil. A quotation from best selling Christian author Dr Rosario Butterworth, “The Biblical truth is that homosexuality and transgenderism are found in the flesh, forbidden in the Law and overcome through the Saviour”. When our minds are assaulted by all sorts of strange ideologies, we pilgrims instead lift and open our Bibles and find the truth, free from the devil’s lies.

Jesus had a testimony, but He never forced it upon people. Then, and now, people have a choice. To believe His testimony, or to reject it. One way leads to eternal life and the other to eternal death. As for me, I know what choice I have made.

Dear Lord Jesus. Only You have the words that lead to eternal life. I believe them, and I pray that those I meet day by day will believe them too. Your testimony is truth and life. Thank You Amen.

God So Loved the World

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”
John 3:16-17 NLT

John 3:16 must be the most well-known verse in the Bible. Books have been written about it. Preachers have evangelised with it. I even heard of it being used at a funeral service, though the minister taking the service left out the bit about “everyone who believes in him” to instead reassure everyone present that they will all end up in Heaven, enjoying eternal life, anyway. But however we view this verse, it is a clear statement as to why Jesus came to this planet two thousand or so years ago. On that occasion, God demonstrated His love for all people in the world, and put into action the plan He had for the salvation of mankind since the beginning, since that fateful day in the Garden, when sin destroyed what God intended.

We notice that the tense in this verse is in the past. Two thousand years ago God expressed His love by sending Jesus. But this was a one-off act of love. God doesn’t keep sending Jesus because there is no need – His one-off birth, life and death, were all that was required to provide a timeless pathway, so that He could one day enjoy the presence of His creation in Heaven with Him. And by so doing, He gave “everyone who believes in him” the opportunity to make a choice about where we will spend eternity. This is a stark choice, John wrote. The options are to “perish” or to “have eternal life”. There is no other way, no half-hearted selection process. We either buy into God’s plan through Jesus or we are effectively turning our backs on Him, choosing instead a lost eternity in a place where we won’t want to be.

In life we don’t know when or how our death will come. Our lives could be cut short in a road accident. Or we could end our days in a hospital bed. We just don’t know, and if asked if we would like to know, we would probably decline the invitation. Looking at the behaviours of some who engage in what are called extreme sports, we perhaps think that some people believe they are immortal. But Jesus came to this world the hard way. Born as a baby to a peasant girl in her early teens, He grew up normally, as far as we can tell, but by the time Jesus started His public ministry, He knew how His life would end. But He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look for a way out. He resolutely looked forward to the Cross, knowing that He would have to endure the whipping, the abuse, the false trial beforehand, all before a devastatingly painful and humiliating death on a Roman Cross. Knowing that this was all part of His Father’s plan. 

Jesus came to this world so that all who believed in Him would have eternal life. And just to emphasise the message, He went on to say that He wasn’t on earth to judge the people there – that was going to come much later – but instead He was going to open a window of opportunity of salvation for everyone through Him. There will come a day when the window will close forever. Jesus taught about it in Matthew 25:31-46, or we can read about it in Revelation 20. Jesus will come again so we must be ready to meet Him.  We pilgrims will never perish and we will enjoy eternal life with Jesus in our Heavenly home. Forever.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Jesus, for Your plan of salvation for mankind, for Your loving kindness. We can never stop thanking and worshipping You. Amen.

Words of Eternal Life

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” “How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked. Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things?””
John 3:8-10 NLT

I wonder what Nicodemus was thinking during his time spent with Jesus that evening two thousand years ago. The conversation was following a path that he never expected. A cosy chat turned into a teaching session that blew Nico’s theology right out of this world. He had never considered the concept of being born again spiritually, but here was a man who he acknowledged had been sent by God to teach the Jewish people, and who was now telling him things that he was struggling to get his mind around. His anguished response “How are these things possible?” just about summed up his dilemma.

Jesus introduced Nicodemus to Kingdom truths that did not fit into his theology and he was confronted with the need to accommodate new God-ideas. Ideas that would set him at odds with his leadership colleagues, and that would change his life forever. He was probably thinking that if he believed what Jesus was saying then his ability to teach the truth was incompatible with traditional Jewish beliefs and compromised his role as a teacher. We never found out what happened after he left Jesus but perhaps he started to introduce what he learnt to his Bible classes. A subtle change in direction perhaps. But we don’t know. 

Over my years as a Christian I have found that God has gently introduced me to truths about Him and His kingdom, and how they must impact my life day by day. Verses from the Bible suddenly illuminate with His life and message. Revelations from Holy Spirit-inspired spiritual nuggets of gold that highlight the difference between the two kingdoms, the kingdom of this world, and the Kingdom of God. A crossroad on my journey to eternal life is exposed, and so often one way seems to go round in a circle and I find myself back to that point, the same crossroad, in my journey once again. 

I often think about Peter’s response to Jesus in John 6:68, “Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life””. That was the message for Nicodemus and he had a choice about what he was going to do with the words that he heard. At the crossroads we all experience, perhaps we cry out that the way God wants us to take is too hard. But God is in no hurry and, as He did with the Israelite slaves in the wilderness, patiently leads and guides us to the promised land. Moses set before the Israelites a spiritual T-junction, as we read in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!” We have a part to play for our future – life and blessings, or death and curses. What choice will we make today, I wonder?

Dear Father God. Please help us to make the right choices in life, no matter what it costs. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jesus Unrecognised

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“John told them, “I baptize with water, but right here in the crowd is someone you do not recognize. Though his ministry follows mine, I’m not even worthy to be his slave and untie the straps of his sandal.” This encounter took place in Bethany, an area east of the Jordan River, where John was baptizing.“
John 1:26-28 NLT

John had a very public ministry and he was known throughout Israel. The people considered him a prophet and, as such, an important man. Such was his fame that the authorities were wary of him. Jesus had a conversation with some religious leaders about John. He asked them a question, as recorded in Mark 11:30-32, ”“Did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human? Answer me!” They talked it over among themselves. “If we say it was from heaven, he will ask why we didn’t believe John. But do we dare say it was merely human?” For they were afraid of what the people would do, because everyone believed that John was a prophet“. John had some important information for the Jews, about Someone who was far greater than he was, but at this stage in His ministry, the Man of whom John spoke, had yet to be recognised. 

Would we pilgrims recognise Jesus if we met Him one day? Isaiah warned that Jesus would have no great distinguishing features of other attributes. We read in Isaiah 53:2, ”My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him”. Western films portray Jesus as a white male but the reality is that Jesus would have been of middle Eastern appearance. We build in our minds a picture based on His ministries, His compassion, love and so on, but there was nothing that set Him apart physically. But that doesn’t alter the fact that Jesus was, and is, the Son of God. 

If we were able to recognise Jesus and His saving grace, others will too. Someone introduced us to Jesus. We may or may not have been looking for Him. We may have been sadly distorted in our perception of who He was. But He found us anyway and we responded to His love and grace. We came to Him in repentance and received the gift of eternal life. I recently had the opportunity to thank the man who introduced me to Jesus, even though it was quite a while since I had met with him. What a privilege it is when we pilgrims have an opportunity to introduce someone to Jesus. They may not recognise Jesus at first, but through His love and grace they will come to take the first steps into His Kingdom. Jesus made such an impact on the Apostle Paul that he wrote, ”Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ“ (Philippians 3:8). That’s how important Jesus is. 

So do you know Jesus? Can you consider Him your friend? We can all get to know Jesus now, in this life, and we will be in His company forever in the life to come. What a privilege! What a Saviour!

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for coming to this world all those years ago. You are preparing a place for us in Heaven and we look forward to joining You there. Amen.