Hungry For

DEVOTION

 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

HUNGRY FOR

John 6:34-40

34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." 35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." 
NIV

There is so much here it really might be better to break it all up into each individual truth and take days to ponder each one, but at the same time it has but one main truth which Jesus was making. But let us look at all he said here part by part, perhaps making one of the longest devotions ever. First those people wanting this bread which would give them eternal life. Just think, bread which we could eat that would bring us eternal life. Could wonder bread do that? Maybe it is whole wheat, or multi grain cardboard bread. Jesus tells them and us it is not any physical bread we could make or buy, but that he is the bread of life. It is Jesus who we must take in to gain eternal life. Everything else in life always leaves us hungry and thirsty for more, but once we accept Jesus we will be satisfied, we need nothing else to fill our life. We will not hunger after other things. This next part is a point of disagreements within the ranks of denominationalism, so claiming this proves God decides who gets saved, using the words, “ All that the Father gives me will come to me.” We know  from so many other words of God that he wants all men to come to him, and so this phrase points to the work, the influencing, the wooing of the Spirit leading people to Jesus. The Spirit is at work making every effort to convince people of their need to repent and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and thus the Father gives them to Jesus. There are too many places within both the Old and New Testament that say, “That all may know”, “That all may honor”, or some other phrase that indicates God desires that all men be saved, as well as so many words that describe men making the choice to love their evil deeds instead of God. But the point here is that when the Spirit convicts a person of their need to repent and that person hears the voice of the Spirit and comes to Jesus, he will forever desire to keep us, he will never say, “Opps, you goofed up, you are out” So who ever responses to the wooing of the Holy Spirit, whoever comes to Jesus, he will forever keep present in our lives, as to not lose us to death. We can also see that it is the Father’s will that whoever, everyone who looks to the Son and believes shall have eternal life. Once again going back to when He said that He loves the world so much that he gave us his Son so that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. It always come down to each person having the opportunity, all throughout the ages, every man must make the choice to believe. God does not make some believe and make others not believe; he gives us that choice, but to those who he convinces through the power of his creation and his Spirit he gives puts them under the authority and protection of Jesus, because it is Jesus who paid the price for us. Jesus redeemed us, Jesus died for us, and so it is right for us to belong to Jesus. Jesus will be the one, who comes back and calls us from the grave. He will raise those of us who have believed in him to eternal life. What more could we ever be hungry or thirsty for? So we must examine what are we hungry for? What do we spent most of our time chasing after? Is it stuff that will spoil, or it is Jesus? What are we hungry for?