John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
This week Michael writes: We’re living in a generation where there is so much distraction and division around us. The church at Laodicea was reproved for being lukewarm. The church in America can learn from this reproof; to gird up the loins of our minds and to trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not to our own understanding.
The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, his “son in the faith”, in a time of history similar to ours. The Scriptures speak of the high ground, an “advantage vantage point”, where we can view the spiritual battlefield from our position seated in the heavenlies from God’s perspective. A godly person is an individual whose heart’s desire is to spend time with the Lord.
In Psalm 27, God set David upon the high rock so that he could survey the lay of the land from the Lord’s vantage point. God warned David about the divisions between families and between those whose relationships we value. It grieves our hearts when people we love turn their hearts away from the Lord for they have chosen death.
God will give a born-again Believer/child of God a heart to serve those in need. As Mother Theresa, whose life ministry was to serve the needy, said: “God works best with nothing.” Jesus said, in that you have served the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-2: “I charge you therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.” The preaching of the word implies that Timothy knew the Word of God. Always be ready in season and out of season for an opportunity to speak the Word of God. It is profitable for doctrine, reproof and correction which is instruction in righteousness.
God works in mysterious ways. He works in us and through us to will and to do of His good pleasure as we delight ourselves in the Lord. Through experience God tests our character through the crucible of life. The pressure of this world tempers us and refines us to prove what’s really important. That being, living this life in the hope of the return of Christ with the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. (Romans 5:3)
The devil will attack at any time. His tactic is to attack us at our weakest point. In the wilderness, Jesus was tempted for forty days in all things like as we are, yet without sin. He was continuously under Satan’s attack, not just the three temptations that we read about in the gospel records. As the people of God, we’re to reprove, rebuke, convince and exhort with patience, the right and true teaching of the Word of God. This is our charge to teach those whom God has called us to minster to. The sound doctrine is the foundation of our faith: the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” - 2 Timothy 4:3. When the storms of life come, the foundation upon which our lives are built will be revealed. Jesus said, the wise man built his house upon the rock. Jesus Christ is the rock, the firm foundation. Then when the rains and storms came that house stood fast.
Like the people at Mars Hill in Athens, Greece, the people of this fallen world have “itching ears”, looking for some new thing to believe. To those whom God has called, the seed of the world of God will take root in the lives of men and women who “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” In the parable of the Sower, the four types of soil represent the four kinds of hearts of people. Only the “good soil” will take root and produce fruit, “some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold and some a hundred-fold.” Yet, as the Apostle Paul said, some are called to plant the seed of the Word of God, some to water and cultivate the field, but God gives the increase.
Continuing in 2 Timothy 4-5, “And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” Paul reminds Timothy that he was called as an evangelist, one who delivers the truth of the gospel ... the good news of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We’re called as born-again Believers and children of God to distribute the Word of God (the Bread of Life). According to John 6:11 “Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples (distributed) to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.”
Let's continue Michael's message on the Bread of Life in the next Post.
In Christ, Brian
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