Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ ?
Many people today have the same heart attitude as the people who followed Jesus around for the fish and the loaves.
Can you imagine seeing Messiah in person and watching him perform miracles but having your main objective to be provision for yourself?
John records this in his account in John 6.
Jesus points out that many followed him because of the miracles which brought them provision.
Now Jesus obviously wanted to bless the people with their needs met but what he was trying to point out to them was that they prioritized material provision over spiritual things.
How many of us have done exactly that? We have bills to pay and all kinds of material needs that causes our anxiety level to go on over drive. All we can think about is our needs. Even our prayers are dominated with them.
Jesus gently instructed those people that it was not his will for them to labour for food which perishes. Nor is it his will for us today to labour for our material needs.
Why would Jesus use the term labour or toil? That’s because it implies pursuing hard after!! Bent on achieving our goals of material necessities to the detriment of our spiritual necessities.
Notice that Jesus used the same term of labour also in our pursuit of the spiritual things of his kingdom.
” Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.”
Jesus gave us that same instruction when he said “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things you need will be given into you.”
The Holy Spirit through the word is pointing out a spiritual principle.
Seeking God first and prioritizing his kingdom in our lives will bring us to a place of maturity in the Lord so that when we ask for our maternal needs we will have such confidence in his ability that we can just lay the need at the feet of Jesus and rest in him without worry or anxiety.
Faith and confidence in God brings results to prayer and so we don’t have to toil obsessively over our material needs.
Anxiety, depression, doubt and all that garbage goes out the window the more we grow in our relationships with Jesus.
John records that some people even got into a boat and rowed out to sea looking for Jesus so that they could get fed. That’s alot of work to get a sandwich!
John also records that people even got into a boat in a storm no less to search for Jesus and what did he say to them after all their hard toil? The same thing he said to the last bunch of people looking to be fed.
“I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.”
Realizing that Jesus was not too pleased with them the people then asked, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?”
What was his reply?
“Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”
So we can see that Jesus prioritized faith in him; who he was, his word and his Kingdom above meeting their material needs.
The people could not wrap their heads.around that because it didn’t make sense to their natural minds. They wanted a sign that Jesus was the Messiah by having him give them some bread from heaven. Well, that’s a step up but still its bread.
Again Jesus reiterates the same message in a different way. Moses fed you manna from heaven that’s true but then Jesus points once more to himself as being the true bread that came down from heaven and he tells the people to seek after him which is the true bread.
There are several different nuggets of truth Jesus is talking about in John chapter 6 but I am honing in on one in particular and that is that Jesus prioritizes our spiritual condition over our material condition.
While Jesus does want to meet our material needs he does not want us to strive and toil about them. He wants us to put our spiritual necessities above our natural necessities. If we do this then all our needs will be met as a bonus.
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