Jesus, the Bread of Life

Thursday, January 09, 2014      Jesus, the Bread of Life

John 6: 26-35

Jesus is doing two very important things in today’s passage. 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. Really? How is that possible? The answer is in Jesus’ second point; but first, it will be well worth it 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 of spiritual nourishment is 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).

Because Jesus is our bread of life, let’s make it our goal to heed the counsel of the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1b-2a) NIV Emphasis Mine).

Sē’lah

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(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. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.