Word for Life in Love— Scripture Meditations By Stephen Brown
The closer we draw to God
The more we become aware of our ungodliness
Of His purity, our stain
His strength, our weakness
His love, our selfishness
His faithfulness, our unfaithfulness
His light, our darkness
His wisdom, our ignorance
His holiness, our sin
The limitless depth of His grace
John 6:46-48 (NIV)
46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
48 I am the bread of life.
Jesus states a bold and joyous truth. There is no doubt or question in His statement. There is no dilution for the sake of making everyone happy with where they are. In fact, what He says has everything to do with getting everyone to where they need to be. Playing the game of inclusion and correctness at the expense of truth only serves the Devil, adding to his domain of death.
Accepting what Jesus says brings everlasting life. Only He truly knows the Father and speaks the Father’s Words. Only the bread of life comes from heaven. He plainly speaks:
“I am the bread of life.”
Ephesians 4:17-21 (MSG)
17 And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd.
18 They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself.
19 They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.
20 But that's no life for you. You learned Christ!
21 My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus.
Losing touch with God is losing touch with reality. Feeling no pain means that the Spirit is absent. The heart has been severed from God and there is no remorse. The open wound of that separation leads to attempts for self healing. As a result, freedom is lost in obsessions and addictions. Because there is no pain, there is no awareness of bondage. We don’t feel the chaffing of the chains.
Here we are reminded that we need to hold on the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. His Word is the Word of God. Any variation or deviation usually leads away from God.
We are to walk with God instead of going along with the crowd. The crowd is prone to mill about and wander. Walking with God keeps both our thinking and path straight.
John 16:1-4 (NIV)
1 "All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.
2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.
3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.
4 I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.
People do many things in the name of God without knowing God. Jesus was speaking of those in His day that claimed to be God’s chosen ones, yet would see killing someone who disagrees with what they believe as a service to God. They even killed God’s own Son for this reason.
That same darkness flourishes today. People kill other people in God’s name, but not for God as revealed in His Word. Many attend church in God’s name, but are not filled with the Spirit. There are some who claim to be Christians but will say there is more than one way to God.
God allows this for His purpose. He does not seek that anyone would perish, but that all would come to Him. But the time He allows for the choice of salvation will not go on forever.
Jesus said that anyone receiving Him receives the Father. Anyone rejecting Him rejects the Father.
The Word of God reveals the characteristics and qualities of the ones who know God and are known by Him. Jesus embodied them and revealed them to us. Murder is not one of them. Actions that are not based on love do not come from God and do not serve Him. What they serve is something or someone else.
John 1:6-9 (NIV)
6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John.
7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe.
8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
John had a unique place in the revelation of Christ. It was given to him to announce the coming of the Lord and to identify Jesus as the Lamb of God. He came as a witness to the light which shines on everyone in the world. His witness was the signal that the unfolding of the
The Lord told John to look for a sign. The sign was given. John witnessed the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus. He testified to that fact. He announced the coming light.
Like John, you and I are now witnesses of that same light. Unlike John, we witness from within the
Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV)
13 "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
The one who does not believe and follow after God offers proof that God does exist and so does the need to be with Him. Even as they deny the spring of living water, they dig their own cisterns to catch the water. With their own hands they dig and for naught. On their own the life they fashion will not work. Dirty hands are the only reward for their labor.
These two sins are two sides of the same thing. Forsaking God leaves only self. Self without God is like a cancerous cell. It multiplies out of control and ends in death.
Life in the body of Christ is the way we were meant to live. Life outside the body of Christ is a broken cistern, incapable of holding water.
Come, take of the living water
Quench your thirst
