Meditations
for Seeking the Life in Christ
The Gospel of John
July 22, 2024
Jesus, the Bread of Life
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 6:35
Jesus is doing two very important things in the passage about the bread of life. (John 6:22-35) First, he recognizes the two dimensions of our lives: our physical life which is temporal and our spiritual life which is eternal. He acknowledges that both our physical and our spiritual life need nourishment. He then stresses the importance of giving priority to our eternal life: “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” (John 6:27a). Jesus is saying that it is vitally important that we take even more care for our spiritual life than we do for our physical life. Seriously? How is that possible? The answer is in Jesus’ second point; but first, it will be well worth our effort to measure the time and energy we expend in feeding, exercising and caring for our physical body and the time and energy we expend caring for our spiritual life.
Jesus’ answer to our need for
spiritual nourishment is in the first of his seven “I am” sayings: “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 6:35). Jesus wanted the
people to understand that he had his Father’s seal upon him. Like a king’s
seal, this not only identified the bearer of the seal as belonging to the king,
but also granted the king’s authority to the bearer. Jesus was God’s son, with
God’s authority, providing food for the people. The signs were provided to
increase the faith of the people so they would live by hope and trust in God.
Remember, everything in John’s Gospel has but one purpose: “that you may continue to
believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing
in him you will have life by the power of his name” (John 20:31).
(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are
published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2024 by Alex M. Knight
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House
Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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