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Dear Friend,
Here is your daily Lenten meditation devotion. If you find it inspirational, we hope you will pass it along to your family and friends.
Thursday, March 26th
John 6:41-51
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, 'I am the bread that came down from heaven.' They were saying, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, "I have come down from heaven"?' Jesus answered them, 'Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the One who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, "And they shall all be taught by God." Everyone who has heard and learned from the One comes to me. Not that anyone has seen God except the one who is from God; he has seen the One Creator. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.'
Jesus faced two primary challenges, one to convince others who he was in order for them to believe in and embrace the action of his second challenge, to give his body as bread for the life of the world. He had approximately 3 ½ years in ministry before the appointed time of his death to complete challenge one, including facing the toughest crowd in and around his home area. For you see, they knew him as a young child, as the son of Joseph and Mary, not as the Son of God which he now proclaimed. Isn't that just like people, to judge based on past and "human" experience, rather than being open to the possibilities through God completing a work in us. God did complete a "work" in Christ. During those 3 years, Jesus taught as one having authority, healed others both physically and spiritually through the Spirit of God in him. Jesus performed numerous signs and wonders counting on those things to help his sheep to hear and recognize his voice. Some did recognize that he came to bring life through his sacrifice and believed, while others did not. How wonderful it is that God created us with a free will to choose! There is no coercion here, only the loving, persistent pursuit of a God who longs for relationship with the creation, in order that we the created may have life restored as God intended it to be. Christ did what he came to do. He accomplished the objectives set before him and followed the will of God completely to its end; with Jesus now sitting at the right hand of God, ever present to serve as our intercessor.
Today, we have the opportunity for Christ's work of love, compassion and calling to continue in us. For the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:14-17 that all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, for we did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! God is my parent!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. In order for us to fully live and further the message of Christ, we too must choose to be led by the Spirit of God. We must believe that we are God's children and fully embrace our position in the family the God. It is when we begin to do this, the light and message of Christ's love for all will begin to radiate from within us for all to see. kdd
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