John 6:60-66
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62 What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." 66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
Observations for Living Today:
Jesus speaks to three types of people in the crowd:
1) those who do not believe His words and follow Him looking to find a way to stop Him;
2) those who believe Him and have lingering doubts regarding what He is teaching—trying to do; and
3) those who accept His statements as true and believe with certainty His words came from God even though they do not fully understand what they mean.
God speaks the truth to everyone and always knows if you believe Him or not. One of the most persistent signs of unbelief is grumbling or complaining about God (Ex 16; Nu 14, 16-17; Dt 1:27). Offended by God? Find out what you do not believe; then discover/learn what is true.
Whatever Jesus is talking about (eating His flesh and drinking His blood) will happen—His words are always true! The Spirit gives life; His words are spirit and they are life. Yet some of His disciples do not believe His words are true, then or now. There are three important points to take away from His lesson to His disciples: unbelief short-circuits God’s blessings; one must accept the hard lesson to benefit from it; and you have to believe God to be able to learn the truth and come to Jesus.
Doubt is the enemy of truth--yet there are some of you who do not believe.
Doubt steals the truth from a questioning mind. Doubt is unbelief; it is not a question, it is a statement (See thoughts on doubt in “The Crossing” posted 8/12). Jesus chided Peter, “You of little belief/faith, why did you doubt?” (Mt 14:31). Jesus taught a believing faith is destroyed by doubt (Mt 21:21; Mk 11:23). Remember Jesus’ rebuke to Thomas (Jn 20:27)—“Stop doubting and believe.” Nothing good ever comes from doubting God!
There is a difference between questioning whether God can do something—doubting what He said is true, and wondering how and when what He said will happen. Do not let your logic trick you into thinking foolishly, i.e., concluding because it has not happened by the time you think it should, that it will not happen. If you believe God can do it, you must also believe He will do it when it should be done: He is always right on time, not too early or too late (Ro 8:28). He also gives time to change your mind (1 Sam 8).
Doubt kills belief (Jas 1:6); it short-circuits what God can do through those who love Him and are loved by Him. Consider the wise counsel given Ester by Mordecai, that her position in life may have been given by God for this very moment to save her people and if she does not do what is right, God would provide their salvation another way, without her (Est 4:9-16). The same theme is carried out over and over in the Old Testament. When Joshua and Caleb believed God could do what He said—they defeated the giants in the land (Nu 13-14); when David believed God was with him—he defeated Goliath (1 Sa 17:34-37, 47).
There is only one way to deal with doubt: recognize doubt for what it is—unbelief. Follow the example of the father who asked for his son to be healed by Jesus if He could and was told, “Everything is possible for him who believes.” His immediate response was, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24). Always be on guard against this the danger, which lies just around the next turn where you might just come face to face with doubt of your own! Recognize your unbelief is warning you something is wrong (1 Cor 10:11-13). Be humble and above all be gentle when dealing with those who are struggling to believe (Jude 22). God calls out to us as He did to Adam (Gen 3:9) and in His mercy He waits for us to believe His message “Today” (Heb 3-4 & 2 Peter 3).
A lesson hard to accept--unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Jesus taught the crowd, His disciples and the 12 Apostles in the Synagogue at Capernaum what God would feed those who believed His words—notice the how is not addressed. Jesus spoke directly to those disciples who believed He was from God enough to follow Him, but when His words became hard to understand, they refused to accept what He was saying was true. If those words were hard to follow when face to face with a speaker who backed up what He said with miraculous acts of compassion and mercy, works everyone recognized as coming from God, they are no less difficult to understand today. Those early Christians who accepted His teachings were accused of being cannibals by those trying to discredit them. An internet search on “Christianity and Cannibalism” provides a variety of websites with information on divergent thoughts, pro and con, specific to this subject. ChristianityTodayLibrary.com provides a great historical perspective in “Defending the Cannibals” written by J. David Cassel. Another site, nobeliefs.com, is notable for an article, “Christian Cannibals” written by an ex-Christian, Jim Walker, which is consumed with hatred of the Christian ritual of communion. Anger/hatred is generally proportionate to its cause. One wonders what tragedy in the life of Mr. Walker would generate such an outpouring of vile thoughts. Or could it be another example of the delusion that invades the mind of a man when he rejects the spirit of God sent to lead him back to the Father. Such bitter thoughts suggest the same difficulty those disciples had accepting God’s message then remains today. It also suggests the truth of what Jesus said to His disciples who left Him that day—unless you are taught by God, that is, believe the God’s word is true and learn from Him (Jn 6:45), you will not be able to come to Jesus to be fed.
To further educate those following Him and remove any doubt about what He meant when speaking about feeding on Him, He told them the flesh counts for nothing—only the Spirit gives life—and life can only be found by believing the words proceeding from the mouth of the Father through Him (Jn 6:63).
A saying hard to understand--no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.
John begins his gospel with this thought: for those who receive and believe Jesus, God gives them the capacity to be born according to His will, that is, by His authority, power and right He makes them His children (Jn 1:12). A discussion of man’s capacity to choose to believe God’s message or messenger is challenging to any disciple. The argument for God choosing some for salvation and condemning those He did not chose for destruction does not agree with John’s gospel. Many who have studied Paul are convinced God “elects those He will save” and the thought of a man being able to reject God is an affront to God’s power, just as an act of man’s will to save himself by choice somehow removes the grace of God from the event. Both are somewhat ill conceived and based on fundamentally flawed assumptions, i.e., a theory based on rationale deduced by one’s own logic, which restricts reality to only what is known by the created. Any theory so reasoned must be seriously questioned when it contradicts any specific word(s) spoken by God the Father, Jesus the Son or written down by those inspired by the Holy Spirit.
God hid Himself, for a time, from the Leadership of Israel so they could not understand, believe and be saved, thereby opening the door of salvation for the Gentiles—whole world. Such a blindness we know is temporary, although, we do not know how much so, or if the temporary blinding or hardening is different for each person. Obviously, many Jews were able to see the truth at Pentecost and even today the Messianic Jews increase daily. But for some of the chosen people, the hardening continued, as Paul was grieved to record in his letter to the Romans (Ro 9:8; 10:3; 11:5, 22-23, 25). Any way you consider it, one core truth cannot be ignored: on the day the crowd heard the words spoken from God, the reality was, “no one can come to me [Jesus] unless the Father has enabled him.” To apply those words to Israel after Pentecost or to rest of the world (Gentiles) may be an overreach not in harmony with John 1:12—“to all who received him, to those who believed in his name.” Yet this we know from John’s revelation, for those who believe His Son, God’s purpose will be accomplished for both the Chosen People of Israel and the whole world (Rv 7). The teachers of Judaism and Christianity alike have a propensity to, as Paul would say, “go beyond what is written” for the sake of their own sectarian identity (1 Cor 4:6). The unfortunate result of this argument over whether a man chooses to believe or is made to believe, distracts from the reality that without believing God, one is doomed to die—resurrection from the dead only brings a second more permanent death (Rv 20). The focus should not be on a question, which may or may not have an answer you can discern, but rather, on do you live believing everything God said is true?
Reality in Christ:
All of the above observations relate to one very important concept! Religion is not about ceremony, sacrifice and speech (recitation of doctrinal statements); it is about becoming what God created you to be. Paul’s lesson on God’s election in Romans 9-11, becomes an implementation plan for practical Christianity in Romans 12 and is made possible only when you believe the one God sent to the world to implement His plan of salvation (Jn 3:16-21). The power of God transforms the spirit of a man by renewing the mind, enabling you to “live by faith” and to test, know and approve what God’s will is. This “living by faith” is a spiritual act of worship (Ro12:2). This “living by faith” is a fulfillment of what Jesus said to the woman at the well (Jn 4:21-24): “a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The reality of living by faith/believing God is described in Paul’s letter to the Colossians (Col 2:1-3:4):
> God made you alive by His power when you were dead—when you accepted God’s truth and fed on the Bread of God.
> This was not accomplished by acts of religion—they were merely a shadow of the reality to come; a shadow or earthly copy of the heavenly truth of no value in changing the sinful nature or restraining worldly indulgences.
> The reality of God’s power is Christ—a life resurrected from the dead, now growing as God causes it to grow, with a spiritual nature joined to God in the fullness of Christ; just as He is one with the Father, so you are one with Him.
What is a hard lesson to accept? What is hard to understand? Hard compared to what?
Jesus in the garden, overwhelmed with sorrow, showing grief, distress and depression, so much so He said to Peter, James and John, “My soul is very sad and deeply grieved, so that I am almost dying of sorrow.” Then going a little farther from them He threw Himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, if there is any other way, let this cup be taken from me.” What did He want to avoid and what would threaten His soul so much? We will know some day, but now we can only imagine He was facing something He had never faced before; something He had never experienced during all the previous eternal days before this moment. Just like you today, Jesus had to believe what the Father told Him and trust God was able to accomplish everything He promised. He did not need to know how His Father would do it, just had to know He would.
We get a small hint of what He faced, when after over three hours hanging on the cross in the hot sun, Jesus again prayed aloud, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken/forgotten/abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46 & Mk 15:33) Most commentaries recognize the difficulty translating such an impassioned prayer. Here in the midst of doing what God sent Him to do, Jesus came face to face with the reality of the sins of the world counted against His soul. Was He experiencing separation from God for the first time? Was there a deafening silence of God following the moment He realized the time was now past, when He could call in more than twelve legions of angels to rescue Him (Mt 26:53)? Was He now totally dependent upon the grace of God to forgive the sin reckoned against His soul and would God accept Him back into His holy presence (Heb 5:7-10)? Or was He was meditating on Psalm 22 in His most difficult hour and the first verse just became audible? We will only know why He said what He said, when He tells us Himself, if He ever does. But know this, in that hour Jesus was just like you in every sense, which is why the Spirit caused Paul to write, “He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” Jesus knew and experienced what you are facing. He experienced it all—the fear, the silence and the waiting for God to act. The difference now is, because of His faith and trust in God, you have someone to help you—an older brother who loves you (Heb 2:10-18; 4:12-16)!
Have any doubt what God said is true? What does it say about a person who does not know what God said? What does it say when a person hears the words of God and does not do them? What does believing the words of God look like in the life of a person who believes God? Doubt is eliminated by knowing God is with you and His Christ is teaching you (Mt 23:10). Reality is, as a Christian, the God’s Christ is with you, always (Jn 14:18 & 27). For the one who believes God, nothing can get between you and your Lord. How does that translate into living by faith? If God opens a door, no one can close it. If you are with God behind a closed door, why would you open it and walk away from God? And if God opens a door and walks through it, why would you stay by yourself without God?
Consider Peter and Paul when looking for an example of what it means to believe and not doubt God can open any door. While any door can be opened by God, it may not be His will the opened door be walked through. Peter was arrested and put in prison 44 AD by King Herod (Acts 12). Peter’s persecution by a Roman with sympathies for the Jewish nation and his miraculous prison door opening was hard for Peter to believe and even harder for those praying for his release to believe. Fact is God can really open any prison door He wants, figuratively or literally. Paul was arrested twice at the behest of the Jewish leadership. The first at Philippi (Acts 16:22-39), God showed He could open Paul’s prison door literally, but showed His purpose of freeing him with dignity was not by walking through it. When Paul was arrested a second time at Jerusalem, God figuratively closed the door, showing a different purpose intended—to provide a testimony in Rome some three years later (Acts 21:10-14; 22:24-30; 23:9-11; 25:6-12; 28:16-31). Paul’s imprisonment became an agent of change fulfilling the word’s he spoke to the Jewish leaders upon his arrival in Rome 61 AD (Act 28:23-29). While there are some ambiguities about what happened, it appears Paul was released after 2 years, only to be arrested yet again and returned to Rome later in chains to be executed (2 Tim 4).
Peter and Paul’s ministry while prisoners of the Roman authorities, contributed to the spread of Christianity and the eventual conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who as a patron of the early Church convened the First Ecumenical Council of more than 1800 Bishops in the city of Nicaea (325 AD). The Nicene Creed written during the council was a statement summarizing what all the churches agreed represented the Christian faith. Fifty five years later on 27 Feb 380 AD, Nicene Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire by decree of Emperor Theodosious I. Eusebius writes in his CHURCH HISTORY, Peter and Paul were both killed in Rome by the Emperor Nero (54-68 AD) after more than twenty years of Christian ministry to the Jews and Gentiles.
Jesus was God’s voice to us, when He lived among us and is now while seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. God is “making everything new” with a new order of things, and soon, He will dwell with us and we with Him; there we will see and hear Him as He is and He will be our God and we his people (Rv 21:1-5; 1 Jn 3:1-3). Until then ours is a life of faith, watching and praying, resisting all temptations to doubt the truth of God.
When Jesus was struggling in Gethsemane with His approaching sacrifice, He asked Peter, James and John to “watch and pray” with Him. When they failed to stay awake and pray with Him in His most difficult hour (Mt 26:36-46; Mk 14:32-42), He rebuked them saying: “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Paul, when He faced “a thorn in [his] flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment [him], he pleaded with God to take it, the weakness, away—but God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Thus we see in the life of our Lord and His Apostles Peter and Paul, the daily work of prayer becomes in itself an act of faith as described by James: if anyone lacks wisdom [to understand his purpose] he should pray knowing God always hears and gives us what we need (Jas 1:2-8, 19-25; 2:14-25). Whether we see the change requested or come to a better understanding of truth, our trusting and believing what He told us, our living by faith becomes a spiritual worship that pleases Him. The Reality in Christ is—God is always with you. Everyone who believes God knows with certainty the Father is living in and doing His work through Jesus Christ. Jesus asked the Father to send His spirit to live with you and be in you. He promised He would not leave you as an orphan, but you would live as He lives, because of the Father; you in Him and Him in you—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit making their home with you, dwelling with you because you believe God’s words (Jn 14).
Therefore, Peter remembering the counsel of Our Lord, wrote these words (2 Pe1) to remind us what is important as we “watch and pray” waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promise to make “everything new”:
"3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
The counsel (Lk 21:33) given by Jesus to those who believed God’s words then is no less true today:
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62 What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." 66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
Observations for Living Today:
Jesus speaks to three types of people in the crowd:
1) those who do not believe His words and follow Him looking to find a way to stop Him;
2) those who believe Him and have lingering doubts regarding what He is teaching—trying to do; and
3) those who accept His statements as true and believe with certainty His words came from God even though they do not fully understand what they mean.
God speaks the truth to everyone and always knows if you believe Him or not. One of the most persistent signs of unbelief is grumbling or complaining about God (Ex 16; Nu 14, 16-17; Dt 1:27). Offended by God? Find out what you do not believe; then discover/learn what is true.
Whatever Jesus is talking about (eating His flesh and drinking His blood) will happen—His words are always true! The Spirit gives life; His words are spirit and they are life. Yet some of His disciples do not believe His words are true, then or now. There are three important points to take away from His lesson to His disciples: unbelief short-circuits God’s blessings; one must accept the hard lesson to benefit from it; and you have to believe God to be able to learn the truth and come to Jesus.
Doubt is the enemy of truth--yet there are some of you who do not believe.
Doubt steals the truth from a questioning mind. Doubt is unbelief; it is not a question, it is a statement (See thoughts on doubt in “The Crossing” posted 8/12). Jesus chided Peter, “You of little belief/faith, why did you doubt?” (Mt 14:31). Jesus taught a believing faith is destroyed by doubt (Mt 21:21; Mk 11:23). Remember Jesus’ rebuke to Thomas (Jn 20:27)—“Stop doubting and believe.” Nothing good ever comes from doubting God!
There is a difference between questioning whether God can do something—doubting what He said is true, and wondering how and when what He said will happen. Do not let your logic trick you into thinking foolishly, i.e., concluding because it has not happened by the time you think it should, that it will not happen. If you believe God can do it, you must also believe He will do it when it should be done: He is always right on time, not too early or too late (Ro 8:28). He also gives time to change your mind (1 Sam 8).
Doubt kills belief (Jas 1:6); it short-circuits what God can do through those who love Him and are loved by Him. Consider the wise counsel given Ester by Mordecai, that her position in life may have been given by God for this very moment to save her people and if she does not do what is right, God would provide their salvation another way, without her (Est 4:9-16). The same theme is carried out over and over in the Old Testament. When Joshua and Caleb believed God could do what He said—they defeated the giants in the land (Nu 13-14); when David believed God was with him—he defeated Goliath (1 Sa 17:34-37, 47).
There is only one way to deal with doubt: recognize doubt for what it is—unbelief. Follow the example of the father who asked for his son to be healed by Jesus if He could and was told, “Everything is possible for him who believes.” His immediate response was, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24). Always be on guard against this the danger, which lies just around the next turn where you might just come face to face with doubt of your own! Recognize your unbelief is warning you something is wrong (1 Cor 10:11-13). Be humble and above all be gentle when dealing with those who are struggling to believe (Jude 22). God calls out to us as He did to Adam (Gen 3:9) and in His mercy He waits for us to believe His message “Today” (Heb 3-4 & 2 Peter 3).
A lesson hard to accept--unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Jesus taught the crowd, His disciples and the 12 Apostles in the Synagogue at Capernaum what God would feed those who believed His words—notice the how is not addressed. Jesus spoke directly to those disciples who believed He was from God enough to follow Him, but when His words became hard to understand, they refused to accept what He was saying was true. If those words were hard to follow when face to face with a speaker who backed up what He said with miraculous acts of compassion and mercy, works everyone recognized as coming from God, they are no less difficult to understand today. Those early Christians who accepted His teachings were accused of being cannibals by those trying to discredit them. An internet search on “Christianity and Cannibalism” provides a variety of websites with information on divergent thoughts, pro and con, specific to this subject. ChristianityTodayLibrary.com provides a great historical perspective in “Defending the Cannibals” written by J. David Cassel. Another site, nobeliefs.com, is notable for an article, “Christian Cannibals” written by an ex-Christian, Jim Walker, which is consumed with hatred of the Christian ritual of communion. Anger/hatred is generally proportionate to its cause. One wonders what tragedy in the life of Mr. Walker would generate such an outpouring of vile thoughts. Or could it be another example of the delusion that invades the mind of a man when he rejects the spirit of God sent to lead him back to the Father. Such bitter thoughts suggest the same difficulty those disciples had accepting God’s message then remains today. It also suggests the truth of what Jesus said to His disciples who left Him that day—unless you are taught by God, that is, believe the God’s word is true and learn from Him (Jn 6:45), you will not be able to come to Jesus to be fed.
To further educate those following Him and remove any doubt about what He meant when speaking about feeding on Him, He told them the flesh counts for nothing—only the Spirit gives life—and life can only be found by believing the words proceeding from the mouth of the Father through Him (Jn 6:63).
A saying hard to understand--no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.
John begins his gospel with this thought: for those who receive and believe Jesus, God gives them the capacity to be born according to His will, that is, by His authority, power and right He makes them His children (Jn 1:12). A discussion of man’s capacity to choose to believe God’s message or messenger is challenging to any disciple. The argument for God choosing some for salvation and condemning those He did not chose for destruction does not agree with John’s gospel. Many who have studied Paul are convinced God “elects those He will save” and the thought of a man being able to reject God is an affront to God’s power, just as an act of man’s will to save himself by choice somehow removes the grace of God from the event. Both are somewhat ill conceived and based on fundamentally flawed assumptions, i.e., a theory based on rationale deduced by one’s own logic, which restricts reality to only what is known by the created. Any theory so reasoned must be seriously questioned when it contradicts any specific word(s) spoken by God the Father, Jesus the Son or written down by those inspired by the Holy Spirit.
God hid Himself, for a time, from the Leadership of Israel so they could not understand, believe and be saved, thereby opening the door of salvation for the Gentiles—whole world. Such a blindness we know is temporary, although, we do not know how much so, or if the temporary blinding or hardening is different for each person. Obviously, many Jews were able to see the truth at Pentecost and even today the Messianic Jews increase daily. But for some of the chosen people, the hardening continued, as Paul was grieved to record in his letter to the Romans (Ro 9:8; 10:3; 11:5, 22-23, 25). Any way you consider it, one core truth cannot be ignored: on the day the crowd heard the words spoken from God, the reality was, “no one can come to me [Jesus] unless the Father has enabled him.” To apply those words to Israel after Pentecost or to rest of the world (Gentiles) may be an overreach not in harmony with John 1:12—“to all who received him, to those who believed in his name.” Yet this we know from John’s revelation, for those who believe His Son, God’s purpose will be accomplished for both the Chosen People of Israel and the whole world (Rv 7). The teachers of Judaism and Christianity alike have a propensity to, as Paul would say, “go beyond what is written” for the sake of their own sectarian identity (1 Cor 4:6). The unfortunate result of this argument over whether a man chooses to believe or is made to believe, distracts from the reality that without believing God, one is doomed to die—resurrection from the dead only brings a second more permanent death (Rv 20). The focus should not be on a question, which may or may not have an answer you can discern, but rather, on do you live believing everything God said is true?
Reality in Christ:
All of the above observations relate to one very important concept! Religion is not about ceremony, sacrifice and speech (recitation of doctrinal statements); it is about becoming what God created you to be. Paul’s lesson on God’s election in Romans 9-11, becomes an implementation plan for practical Christianity in Romans 12 and is made possible only when you believe the one God sent to the world to implement His plan of salvation (Jn 3:16-21). The power of God transforms the spirit of a man by renewing the mind, enabling you to “live by faith” and to test, know and approve what God’s will is. This “living by faith” is a spiritual act of worship (Ro12:2). This “living by faith” is a fulfillment of what Jesus said to the woman at the well (Jn 4:21-24): “a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The reality of living by faith/believing God is described in Paul’s letter to the Colossians (Col 2:1-3:4):
> God made you alive by His power when you were dead—when you accepted God’s truth and fed on the Bread of God.
> This was not accomplished by acts of religion—they were merely a shadow of the reality to come; a shadow or earthly copy of the heavenly truth of no value in changing the sinful nature or restraining worldly indulgences.
> The reality of God’s power is Christ—a life resurrected from the dead, now growing as God causes it to grow, with a spiritual nature joined to God in the fullness of Christ; just as He is one with the Father, so you are one with Him.
What is a hard lesson to accept? What is hard to understand? Hard compared to what?
Jesus in the garden, overwhelmed with sorrow, showing grief, distress and depression, so much so He said to Peter, James and John, “My soul is very sad and deeply grieved, so that I am almost dying of sorrow.” Then going a little farther from them He threw Himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, if there is any other way, let this cup be taken from me.” What did He want to avoid and what would threaten His soul so much? We will know some day, but now we can only imagine He was facing something He had never faced before; something He had never experienced during all the previous eternal days before this moment. Just like you today, Jesus had to believe what the Father told Him and trust God was able to accomplish everything He promised. He did not need to know how His Father would do it, just had to know He would.
We get a small hint of what He faced, when after over three hours hanging on the cross in the hot sun, Jesus again prayed aloud, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken/forgotten/abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46 & Mk 15:33) Most commentaries recognize the difficulty translating such an impassioned prayer. Here in the midst of doing what God sent Him to do, Jesus came face to face with the reality of the sins of the world counted against His soul. Was He experiencing separation from God for the first time? Was there a deafening silence of God following the moment He realized the time was now past, when He could call in more than twelve legions of angels to rescue Him (Mt 26:53)? Was He now totally dependent upon the grace of God to forgive the sin reckoned against His soul and would God accept Him back into His holy presence (Heb 5:7-10)? Or was He was meditating on Psalm 22 in His most difficult hour and the first verse just became audible? We will only know why He said what He said, when He tells us Himself, if He ever does. But know this, in that hour Jesus was just like you in every sense, which is why the Spirit caused Paul to write, “He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” Jesus knew and experienced what you are facing. He experienced it all—the fear, the silence and the waiting for God to act. The difference now is, because of His faith and trust in God, you have someone to help you—an older brother who loves you (Heb 2:10-18; 4:12-16)!
Have any doubt what God said is true? What does it say about a person who does not know what God said? What does it say when a person hears the words of God and does not do them? What does believing the words of God look like in the life of a person who believes God? Doubt is eliminated by knowing God is with you and His Christ is teaching you (Mt 23:10). Reality is, as a Christian, the God’s Christ is with you, always (Jn 14:18 & 27). For the one who believes God, nothing can get between you and your Lord. How does that translate into living by faith? If God opens a door, no one can close it. If you are with God behind a closed door, why would you open it and walk away from God? And if God opens a door and walks through it, why would you stay by yourself without God?
Consider Peter and Paul when looking for an example of what it means to believe and not doubt God can open any door. While any door can be opened by God, it may not be His will the opened door be walked through. Peter was arrested and put in prison 44 AD by King Herod (Acts 12). Peter’s persecution by a Roman with sympathies for the Jewish nation and his miraculous prison door opening was hard for Peter to believe and even harder for those praying for his release to believe. Fact is God can really open any prison door He wants, figuratively or literally. Paul was arrested twice at the behest of the Jewish leadership. The first at Philippi (Acts 16:22-39), God showed He could open Paul’s prison door literally, but showed His purpose of freeing him with dignity was not by walking through it. When Paul was arrested a second time at Jerusalem, God figuratively closed the door, showing a different purpose intended—to provide a testimony in Rome some three years later (Acts 21:10-14; 22:24-30; 23:9-11; 25:6-12; 28:16-31). Paul’s imprisonment became an agent of change fulfilling the word’s he spoke to the Jewish leaders upon his arrival in Rome 61 AD (Act 28:23-29). While there are some ambiguities about what happened, it appears Paul was released after 2 years, only to be arrested yet again and returned to Rome later in chains to be executed (2 Tim 4).
Peter and Paul’s ministry while prisoners of the Roman authorities, contributed to the spread of Christianity and the eventual conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who as a patron of the early Church convened the First Ecumenical Council of more than 1800 Bishops in the city of Nicaea (325 AD). The Nicene Creed written during the council was a statement summarizing what all the churches agreed represented the Christian faith. Fifty five years later on 27 Feb 380 AD, Nicene Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire by decree of Emperor Theodosious I. Eusebius writes in his CHURCH HISTORY, Peter and Paul were both killed in Rome by the Emperor Nero (54-68 AD) after more than twenty years of Christian ministry to the Jews and Gentiles.
Jesus was God’s voice to us, when He lived among us and is now while seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. God is “making everything new” with a new order of things, and soon, He will dwell with us and we with Him; there we will see and hear Him as He is and He will be our God and we his people (Rv 21:1-5; 1 Jn 3:1-3). Until then ours is a life of faith, watching and praying, resisting all temptations to doubt the truth of God.
When Jesus was struggling in Gethsemane with His approaching sacrifice, He asked Peter, James and John to “watch and pray” with Him. When they failed to stay awake and pray with Him in His most difficult hour (Mt 26:36-46; Mk 14:32-42), He rebuked them saying: “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Paul, when He faced “a thorn in [his] flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment [him], he pleaded with God to take it, the weakness, away—but God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Thus we see in the life of our Lord and His Apostles Peter and Paul, the daily work of prayer becomes in itself an act of faith as described by James: if anyone lacks wisdom [to understand his purpose] he should pray knowing God always hears and gives us what we need (Jas 1:2-8, 19-25; 2:14-25). Whether we see the change requested or come to a better understanding of truth, our trusting and believing what He told us, our living by faith becomes a spiritual worship that pleases Him. The Reality in Christ is—God is always with you. Everyone who believes God knows with certainty the Father is living in and doing His work through Jesus Christ. Jesus asked the Father to send His spirit to live with you and be in you. He promised He would not leave you as an orphan, but you would live as He lives, because of the Father; you in Him and Him in you—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit making their home with you, dwelling with you because you believe God’s words (Jn 14).
Therefore, Peter remembering the counsel of Our Lord, wrote these words (2 Pe1) to remind us what is important as we “watch and pray” waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promise to make “everything new”:
"3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
The counsel (Lk 21:33) given by Jesus to those who believed God’s words then is no less true today:
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.
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