This weekend I was faced with a passage in John 6 that demanded an answer. So often, we get caught up in our daily lives and wonder what He’s doing through us. We listen to the lies of the enemy and don’t duck when his fiery arrows come at our minds. We wonder what our purpose is and what we are doing for the kingdom. We start making big plans or even small excuses for the dreams He placed in our hearts. We question His timing and His all-knowing purpose behind everything. We succumb to the meaningless action of worry… when He states it quite simply.

Our job is to follow the example of Christ. But that in itself seems to be often misconstrued and made seemingly impossible. We become this worry-mongering people driven by shame and guilt, asking ourselves when we ever actually look like Jesus. But that’s not the point. We aren’t to become Jesus. We need to become who He made us to be. However, we can’t become the full beauty of His creation without knowing the Creator, and that’s where it gets twisted. 

We place too much and too little on ourselves. We are a people of extremes. One minute, we lay down everything, but the next, we deny Jesus. One moment, we are on fire, and the next, dazed and burned out in smoke, doing donuts in confusion. Where does it all begin? When we believe it is up to us. 

We alone cannot live a life pleasing to God. Faith alone pleases Him; we have very little of it. Thankfully, He just requires a meager mustard seed… yet do we even have that? We recognize that Jesus was resurrected by the Spirit, yet we limit His power living in us. He raised us from being spiritually dead to being alive in Christ, yet we still walk around moping for that graveyard because we don’t know how to live in freedom. 

When we ignore Holy Spirit, we deny the power, and our faith, our relationship, becomes a religion. It becomes something WE DO and not something that Jesus does through us. That’s why we need that Life-giving Spirit.

Because of the resurrection, we are now His temples. Our bodies house the power and Spirit of the living God, yet we are poor examples of His grace. We shut off any opportunity in the name of insecurity and fear. We say no to what He whispers because we fear its grandeur. 

A holy life is a wild life. Not one by definition of the world, but one that is led by reckless abandon yet rooted in unwavering love. He chases us, yet we stay still and mindlessly flip through the satisfactions of this world like pages in a picture book. He pursues us, yet we downplay His love and utter compassion. What if we embraced the Spirit of Love? The God of compassion and mercy. The one of second chances and tender kindness. What if we took the pedestals down in our mind where the idea of God we created sits, and allowed Jesus to completely shock us with His overwhelming goodness and true character? What if our minds are the ones that hold us back? What if what we believe He is, is really what masquerades His true beauty? 

Many had this same problem in John 6. They saw the signs, yet they denied the power behind it. They asked a simple question and received a simple answer. “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” He said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” Yet isn’t believing faith? Faith put into action. Jesus called faith a work – that rocks many boats of ideology and theology. But that is why so many Christians are missing out on the true beauty and abandon of being Loved and Pursued by Christ. We have grown accustomed to merely accepting and making Him do everything while we live our way. 

We choose Him as our Lord and Savior, recognizing His undeniable sacrificial love, yet deny that it requires something of us. It requires us to lay down our own life and to lift His. He must increase when I must decrease. We are empty humanity filled with weightless air. To be filled with Jesus, we must empty ourselves by choosing to sit under His presence and be filled with His Spirit – that living water and precious anointing oil. Some may call us crazy or think we have lost our minds, but that is what happens when you come face to face with the wild abandonment of the cross. You understand there is something bigger than our temporal lives.

He left His throne, pursued a relationship with us, paid the price to have us back, and defeated all things that held us back, only for us to thank Him once and continue with our lives. 

Isn’t that where many stop? They acknowledge His authority but deny the power and the intimacy they could have with their Lord. They hold Him at a distance – an arm-stretch away from their lives– and compartmentalize Him to Sundays only. Yet, He deserves all of it. Every. Single. Minute. 

We are His temples, living sacrifices unto Him. When we realize denying ourselves means taking on the abundant and eternally weighty life of Christ, we understand that this life is not for us to get everything we can out of it. It is to spread His abundant life and to live in the freedom He brings. “Salvation didn’t come to stay with you. It came to go to someone else. (A.H)” Our lives are conduits, channels, and pathways into the lives of many. But what do we share with them? 

The harvest is ready, but will we labor? Will we work at it and press hard into the Kingdom call of Jesus? Will we put our belief into action and make it faith? Will we be the people on earth that others look at and say something is different, for the better? Or will we remain some of the biggest people to pity, the greatest actors, and the worst friends? Will we hoard His amazing message or will we live in joy the life He has given to us? Abundant life is not just for you. Jesus gave His life for others. If the King of all Kings became a servant for us, should we not become a servant for others? 

No one comes to the Father unless it is granted and he is drawn by Holy Spirit (John 6). Will we watch humanity die in ignorance of His grace and overwhelming love? Or will we pursue the Great I AM and live a life reflecting His so they cannot help but say, “Why do you live this way?” We are to bring them home and intercede for them, showing them His majesty.

Jesus alone brings abundant living. Everything else is temporal and will die with you. He is the Life-giver – the Sustainer and Quencher of the spiritual need in this world. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.
(John 6:51)”

He said it, but do we believe it? Do we stand on it? But more importantly, do we act on it in faith? He is the bread of Heaven. When we eat His words and consume His life-giving presence, we become equipped to witness and work in the fields of this world. 

But few understand it. Few place their desires on the line and chase His marvelous story. He is the Author; we are the storytellers. Do you share the story through words or actions? Do you tell of the testimonies He has brought you through? If not, why?

He has overcome and demolished the weapon of the enemy. Sin no longer has power. Victory over it has been claimed and given. The enemy has no power except what we give. Will you give him the ability to work while you are sitting in indecision of His power in your life? Will you let the enemy move through his agenda to keep people from listening because you are afraid to speak/act?

Renew the Joy of your salvation. Chase Him and give Him your all. He is worthy. Does your life show it? What is it that you are believing that is holding you back? He has conquered all through His blood. How will you respond to His life and sacrificial love? Will you become a living sacrifice and a temple to His Spirit? Or will you deny the Spirit living inside of you from working? Do not limit Him; be willing.