When Others Walk Away

 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Other would be disciples were walking away because of a hard teaching about commitment Jesus had just given them.  Jesus then asked His twelve men if they wanted to go away also.  Peter spoke for them when he said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God" (John 6:68).

           

Peter and the others had a lot of things still to learn, but Peter got it right on this one.  We Christians believe that Jesus is "the Holy One of God."  We believe that He has "words of eternal life."  We don't follow Him because He is nice and charismatic and has a wonderful leadership demeanor about Him.  We follow Him because we truly believe He has words of eternal life and that He is the Holy One of God.  

           

In His redemptive love we have come to have abundant life.  We have come to know the reality of sins forgiven and guilt removed.  We have come to know what it means to be embraced by God's grace and to live with an inner peace that stays with us through the good and bad times, and through the highs and lows.

           

Words of eternal life guide us and lead us and direct us.  The Holy One of God lives in us and makes us adequate to face reality, whatever reality may be in a given moment or situation.  Jesus is with us for the long haul, and He is with us as Savior and Lord. 

           

That leaves us, doesn't it?  Will we be with Him for the long haul?  On the highest mountaintop or the lowest valley will we stay with Him? When everything that can go wrong is going wrong, will we stay with Him?  When to follow Him is difficult, will we stay with Him?  Do we really believe He is the Holy One of God? 

CATCH THE GLORY

 Jesus has a way of getting right to heart of a matter with an upfront honesty that leaves no doubts as to what is in His mind.  Case in point, John chapter six.  He had fed thousands of people that day in a situation where if He had not worked a miracle they wouldn't have eaten at all.  They were impressed.

           

Then Jesus started speaking about following Him and discipleship and the selfless living of those who might call Him LORD.  He used graphic terms that were very taxing to the brain.  He said, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves" (John 6:53).  Eat His flesh and drinking His blood, what's that about?  He said, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:54).  Then He adds, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him" (John 6:56).  Hard words to take, aren't they? Go ahead; admit it.

           

When the people heard the words that day they "withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore" (John 6:66).  They knew Jesus was talking about total commitment, about a way of life where they emptied themselves of themselves and committed to Jesus everything it meant for them to be who they were. 

           

They loved Him when He worked miracles that fed them good food.  They didn't like it so much when He called them to live in Him so closely, so fully, that He became the very source and nutrition of their lives.  Let the miracles flow and the people were there, but when they ceased flowing the folks were no where to be seen. 

           

Why do we follow Jesus?  Because He works miracles that make us feel good or because He is who He is?  Jesus calls us to follow Him because of who He is.  Miracles may or may not happen.  Everyday, without exception, Jesus is LORD.  May God help us to be so captivated by who Jesus is that if miracles don't happen we still live, caught up in the glory of this One who is LORD.  Catch the glory and LIVE!

Walking The Walk

 We Christians are not super human beings but we are human beings whose lives have been graced by a Sovereign and Almighty God.  God has done a profound thing by transferring us from the dominion of darkness into the dominion of light, something He will do for anybody who will give him opportunity. 

This is where the Church comes in.  Followers of Jesus have been given the awesome privilege of letting people know that God is not removed from their lives but longs to be front and center in them.  How do we share a message like this?  We share it by living it. 

Ephesians 5:1 tells us to "be imitators of God, as beloved children."  As children of our heavenly Father we look like Him, as a child might look like his or her father.  It might be our eyes, our smile, our mouth, an expression of some kind that leads people to say, "Man you look like your dad." (I get this all the time from people who knew my dad). 

As a child of our heavenly Father we are gifted to reflect the image of God by the way we live and move and have our being.  Paul takes it a step further and says that how we live is like being "a fragrant aroma," an aroma of Christ (Eph. 5:2). 

Go out and smell good for the Christ you serve.  Make God look good.  Show by the way you live that His grace and mercy are real and valid and at work in the world.  Be the light and salt of the lavished grace of God.  Be contagious.  May the character of our lives be a problem for those who don't believe in God, a positive problem that God can use to touch others by His Amazing Grace.  

A New Self

 The Bible calls followers of Jesus to "Lay aside the old self" and to "be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Eph. 4:22-23).  There is a "new self" to which God calls us and it is a new self that is rooted and grounded in the life of Jesus.

God works His very life into our lives and calls us to live in excellence, an excellence we first see in Jesus.  This miracle of redemption is an awesome act of God's grace and mercy, and lifts one out of the junk and stuff of life and up into the righteousness and holiness of God. 

It is a miracle when a person is enabled to no longer give themselves to the stealing, killing and destroying ways of the one Jesus calls, "The thief" (John 10:10).  The apostle Paul said that what God does in the human life is so dramatic that "if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Cor. 5:17).

Isn't it a wonderful reality to know that the past doesn't have to control the present or the future, that the grace and mercy of God can bring into us a new way of being?   I've watched the old ways long enough now to know they are not working out well.  This old world needs a dose of something new.  This something new is Jesus who loves us so much He died upon the cross of Calvary to set us free from the thief and to bring us to life in the glory of God.