John 6:48

It's been a while since my last exposition on Scripture, as I've been busy studying for school and licensing exams. That's certainly not to say I have not been studying God's Word; I have been, as God allows, very diligently. I can't begin to express what God has taught me in these past few months, suffice it to say He has drawn me very close to Him through worship, prayer, meditation, fellowship, and, of course, His Word. During this time I've stumbled and I've fallen, but God has been using these times to teach me His grace. His mercy and His grace last forever, and each new day I have a fresh supply which, inevitably, I've exhausted come the end of the day. Still, I confess my sins and He is faithful to forgive me and cleanse me from all of my unrighteousness, much as it may be! How awesome is God!

Now, I know that many of you who I've been back in touch with since returning, through email, church, coffee, dinners, serving together, etc., are matured in your Christian service beyond the place I am today. For the help you've all given me over these years, I humbly say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your prayers and guidance and support are beyond words. I am truly grateful and thankful to God for each and every one of you, and I want everyone to know that you each hold a very special place in my heart. One of God's gifts to me has been an ability of, well, I would say insight, both into circumstances and the events surrounding them and, specifically, the people who are at play in them. This is a newer development in my life, and I certainly recognize that it is only by God's grace I can pick up on subtle moods or slight nuances of tone or emotion and their underlying causes. With this said, I really do believe that God has surrounded me with some of the best people on this planet. Again, that is only by His grace, but the fact remains you are here in my live. Calvary Chapel of Boston is my church home. God, as you all know, is there. Those who are serving are certainly not perfect, but God has chosen these men and women who have in turn submitted to His will and committed their lives to Him. I now count myself among this group, and it's through the prayer and support of my friends and family over the years that I reached the point in my life, relatively unscathed, where I could finally reach out and take God's Hand on my own and let Him guide me in His will.

So in this past few months I have grown in the wisdom and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ! Immensely! I can't stress enough how good God has been to me, and how He is working in me every day! I can look back and see His Hand over my life, even this time I've been home, and I thank Him for His loving guidance all these years. When I first recommitted my life to Him (I asked God into my heart at the church when it was next to Wearguard; I was just horribly, horribly backslidden), the first thing He told me was "evil in, evil out" and conversely, "God in, God out". It was simple. He certainly started with the small things, and while I can't say I'm tackling the forces of evil head on (yet, I still have a lot to learn), I know that greater is He that is in me than He that is in the world! I've filled myself with the world for so long, but Jesus is greater still! He's in my soul right now, scrubbing and cleaning and power washing and waxing and shining and polishing! Proverbs 4:8 was a comfort in my first few weeks where I couldn't stop myself from doing the same stupid things over and over. It says, "But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day." I can't tell you the comfort I've taken in this. My brightness is growing, slowly but surely, and will continue to do so until Jesus comes to take us home! Come, Jesus, come!

I have learned that Jesus is the bread of life, as He tells us in John 6:48. This would seem obvious, but I know that there are plenty of times it seems when even this simple maxim is beyond my comprehension. If Jesus is the bread of life, I need Him every day! I can't skip one day, and truth be told, I can't skip one meal! I know that I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner (never mind the in-betweens) every day, and I know what happens when I fail to take in that most crucial of human needs, food (or water, but He's on that too in John 4). I starve! I'm drained! I'm tired, I get grumpy which leads to fights, I can be mean, unkind, hurtful, etc. These are all things I work to avoid by regularly and amply filling my physical appetite. In that same sense, the exact same sense, if I miss my Bread of Life, I starve! I'm drained! I'm tired, I get grumpy which leads to fights...you see where I'm going with this. Again, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir on this one, but it's so important and it's relatively new to me! I can not stop thinking about Jesus, praying, or focusing on Him for one second or I'm liable to do some damage. Jesus is our only hope of making it through each and every day, and we're fools to not eat of Him multiple times every day!

In John 6, Jesus references Himself as the bread of life over and over and over! Don't look now, but I think He's trying to tell us something! For anyone not with me yet, Jesus IS THE BREAD OF LIFE! I type-screamed that for emphasis. Our spiritual lives are wholly dependent on repeated interactions with God and the bread of life He has given us, His Son Jesus. It's undeniably necessary that we look to Him each day. As I start work, I've prayed to God that He will not allow me to fill my time with more than is absolutely necessary to just sustain. That's all I want, and that's all I need. The day when I've stopped going to Sunday/Wednesday services, stopped serving at church, stopped daily prayer/reading/meditating, is the day I quit work. I trust that He will provide far more than I trust that I will provide. Jesus often went without food and sleep so to be in prayer, His connection with His Father. Jesus was never out of step with God, never missed a stop on His travels, never said, "Five more minutes, Dad", never once quit when there was work left to be done. How could He possibly do this? Yes, He was God, so that helps a bit, but remember, He was also fully man. He was tested in every way, yet He was without sin! How'd He do that! We read in John 6:57, Jesus says as He explains this idea of the He as the source of life, "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me." Jesus was able to live a wholly blameless life because of His dependence on His Father, as He said, "...I live because of the Father..." Well that settles it in my mind. If Jesus is dependent on His Father for life, and He's also fully God, how much more am I, not even partially God, need to totally rely on Him just as Jesus did!

I am at a point in my life where Jesus makes sense. Even if I don't eat food or I don't sleep, I will be better than fine if I get my Bread of Life, my Jesus. This isn't negotiable. We can't miss one day, not one day, for fear of doing something we'll regret! God has already forgiven those sins we will commit when we walk away, even a short distance, but why go through the needless suffering of self-punishment and anguish when we fail our Lord? Why not just totally depend on Him and skip the apologies? When we walk away from God, when our thoughts are not beaten into captivity to the obedience of Christ, when we fail to fill our tanks with the Bread of Life every day, we're doing only harm to ourselves and those around us. The assistant pastor at my church, Pastor Scott, gave an amazing message this past Sunday. I love Scott and his teaching. As Pastor Randy is on vacation, Pastor Scott is teaching the short book of Jonah, and he used Jonah's refusal to submit to God's will as a very clear example of what happens when we refuse to do so. During the message, he asked, and it hit home, "How many of the storms in our lives are of our own disobedience?" I'm paraphrasing, but it was along those lines. If we stay in God's Word, and we feed on the Bread of Life, as He repeatedly implored us to, how many of life's storms could we avoid?