Are we satisfied with too little?
Are we satisfied with less than God's perfect will for our lives? Is good enough OK with us? Is there nothing more we want?Lord Jesus, stir up in all of us a holy dissatisfaction with the status quo. Please open our eyes to see our own neediness, blindness, and nakedness. Help us to feel the hungriness that corresponds to the reality of our need for you. Help us to realize our poverty, and wretched pitiable condition. Lord we think we are fine because we have no idea how much more there is . . . We have never experienced all that you are . . . We don't know how to want it. Help us please. Amen.
      |  Rev 3:15 | "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! |
| Rev 3:16 | So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. |
| Rev 3:17 | For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. |
| Rev 3:18 | I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. |
| Rev 3:19 | Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. |
 | Rev 3:20 | Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. |
| Rev 3:21 | The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. |
| Rev 3:22 | He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'" Click on this link to study further. (http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfmb=Rev&c=3&t=ESV#17) We have all experienced being told as children, "Don't eat that. It will spoil you supper." We all know exactly what that means. If we eat "junk food" that has no nutritional value, we will be filled. When the healthy meal is served, we will not be hungry; we will not eat the food that will nourish us and keep us healthy. We know that salty sugary snacks can cause us to be scornful of our veggies and to crave more junk, so that even if we are hungry we have no appetite for healthy food. Our desires become corrupted. We are satisfied only with that which not only does not produce health, but which actually produces sickness. Many people become over weight and suffer from malnutrition at the same time because of the quantity of empty calories that they consume. I believe we are spiritually eating things which are spoiling our appetite for God. We are filled with things that are empty of spiritual nutrition at best, and are probably damaging to our spiritual health. Some of us maybe dying from malnutrition, but we do not even notice because we do not feel hungry. What are we consuming that is giving us a false sense of satisfaction? Is it television, or some other form of entertainment? Could it be an unhealthy relationship, shopping, food, stamp collecting? Anything that could be fine as a snack or dessert can be harmful as the main course, and obviously, some things are harmful to some people in any amount. When we have corrupted our physical appetites, are sick, toxic, and over weight, a fast will clean our bodies and renew our hunger for wholesome food. Fasting can do the same thing for us spiritually. Let's ask God to show us those things in our lives that make us believe that we "are rich and have need of nothing". Let's fast from those things and see if our spiritual appetite and then our spiritual health will improve. Lets see if we will begin to hunger and thirst for righteousness. |
I was starting to look up the Bread of Life when i came upon this passage...I could go no further...wow...
ReplyDeleteJohn 6:28 So then they said to him, “What must we do to accomplish the deeds God requires?” 6:29 Jesus replied, “This is the deed God requires – to believe in the one whom he sent.” 6:30 So they said to him, “Then what miraculous sign will you perform, so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 6:31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
6:32 Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the solemn truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven. 6:33 For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 6:34 So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”
6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty. 6:36 But I told you that you have seen me and still do not believe. 6:37 Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away. 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. 6:39 Now this is the will of the one who sent me – that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up at the last day. 6:40 For this is the will of my Father – for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Go to Part 2
Part 2
ReplyDeleteJohn 6:41 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” 6:42 and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 6:43 Jesus replied, “Do not complain about me to one another. 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 6:45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me. 6:46 (Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God – he has seen the Father.) 6:47 I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. 6:48 I am the bread of life. 6:49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 6:50 This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die. 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
6:52 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. 6:54 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 6:55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 6:56 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. 6:57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me. 6:58 This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
Many Followers Depart
6:59 Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 6:60 Then many of his disciples, when they heard these things, said, “This is a difficult saying! Who can understand it?” 6:61 When Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining about this, he said to them, “Does this cause you to be offended? 6:62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? 6:63 The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
Lord I believe and eat, help my unbelief!