Category Archives: The Good News of Jesus

Eating Jesus…

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When Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life (See, “Free Food, Free Drink”), He took it a step further.  He said you have to eat Him!

 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”  (John 6:53-54)

Yuck!  Sounds disgusting,   Did Jesus really suggest He would be the main course at the cannibal feast?   We can figure out what He really meant by comparing what Jesus said just a bit before those shocking words.  This quote is almost the same as the second sentence above, except for the words, “looks to and believe.”

“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.” (John 6:40)

See that?  “Eat my flesh…” replaces “looks to and believes…”   Therefore, we know that Jesus used “eat my flesh” as a vivid metaphor for believing. 

When you think about it, so do we.  We say “I swallowed what he told me,” to mean that we believed what he said.   When you swallow something you come to a personal moment of decision and surrender.  It is an act of faith.  You believe it will be better if you move something from outside you to inside, where it will become absorbed into your life.  That’s what Jesus meant:

 “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood (i.e. whoever believes and takes Me in) remains (makes his home) in me, and I (make My home) in him.” (John 6:56 – with my added explanations.  

The word “remains” is a Greek word for living permanently, making ones home in, or abiding.)  When Jesus makes His home in you, His life comes to life within you.  Because His life is eternal, you have (present tense) eternal life.  His, eternal life, living in you by means of the Holy Spirit, is the consequence of your personal, voluntary, decision of faith to “swallow” Jesus!

Chew on that!  

Free Food! Free Drink!

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Years ago I worked for a couple of days at a fundraising concert for the US Ski Team.  Among the perks for the workers at that event was free skiing and free gourmet food and drink, served at a large, covered pavilion, halfway down one of the ski slopes.  We would ski up to this big tent, show our passes, go in and chow down on some of the tastiest food I’ve ever eaten.  Here’s a question for you:  If you could get invited to that, would you go?  Me too!    Here’s another invitation.  This one is not hypothetical; it’s real and your name is one the card:

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy  and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on  what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”  Isaiah 55:1-3a

Isaiah gave advance notice of that party; Jesus delivered the invitation:

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.   John 6:35

Can this be for real?  God said it again:

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.   Revelation 21:6-7

Okay, then – how do I sign up?   Isaiah included the instructions for your RSVP:

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.  Isaiah 55:6-7

It’s in the Details…

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Perhaps it doesn’t seem like much that Isaiah foretold the crucifixion of Jesus, 700 years before He came. Maybe you think it was just a lucky guess. Maybe so, until you consider the amazing detail he foresaw. Isaiah’s most complete prophecy about the crucifixion is found in Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12. Here’s a few of the details:

Isaiah knew that Jesus would begin as a baby and grow to be an apparently ordinary young boy:

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)

He knew that most people would not accept Him:

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3)

He told how and why Jesus would be killed:

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

How Jesus would respond:

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)

And where Jesus would be buried:

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, (Isaiah 53:9a)

Despite all of that, Isaiah knew that God’s will and purpose would be accomplished:

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering.., (Isaiah 53:10a)

And that Jesus would be resurrected!

he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10b)

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; (Isaiah 53:11a)

Most amazingly, Isaiah knew that by Jesus’ death and resurrection, those who “knew” Him, who entered into an intimate relationship with Him, would be “justified” – declared righteous by God!

by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11b)

There is more; I only included the highlights. It would be worth giving the whole passage a slow and thoughtful reading. But with each of those details, it was as though, 700 years in advance, Isaiah was describing a precisely shaped, missing puzzle piece. Jesus fit each of those prophesied details exactly – even the ones that happened after He was killed. And many more. But don’t let this simply be amazing. Make sure you are one of those who are justified by knowing Jesus. (See “Accepting the Gift”)

Chew on that…

By the way, I’m happy to receive your comments and questions. They help me decide what to write.

Accepting the Gift

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Unemployed, you have missed the last several mortgage payments on a house worth less than you paid.  You are about to be foreclosed.  A registered letter comes to the door.  You sign for it and tear it open:  “This is to inform you that someone, who would like to remain anonymous, has offered to pay off your mortgage obligations.  If you choose to accept this gift, the bank has agreed to suspend all foreclosure proceedings.”  Nice letter, eh?  Nice gift.

God’s gift to us wipes out the obligations we owe for sin – completely – if we accept it.  His Son, Jesus, Who never sinned and therefore had no personal punishment due, willingly died a brutal and tortuous death to cover what I owed.  And you.  If you accept His gift, God suspends His foreclosure on your life.  God told Isaiah He would do this and told him to write it down:

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  (Isaiah 53:4-5)

If someone offers to pay off your mortgage, your first response might be something like, “What? Does he think I’m in poverty?  Does he think I can’t do this on my own?  Give me a bit more time and I will get this fixed…”  But if you hang on to that attitude, you won’t accept the offer.   In a sense, accepting his offer involves a willingness to acknowledge that you really do need his help.   In the same way, accepting the gift of Someone Who went to His death on your behalf requires a change in attitude, acknowledging that such a gift is absolutely necessary.  Most of us would rather hold to the notion that, “I got this; I’m doing pretty well on my own; I’m a good person.”   But if you do continue to believe those things, you cannot accept the gift. Do you remember how Isaiah responded when he caught a glimpse of God’s glory?

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”  Isaiah 6:5

Isaiah knew a humbling truth:  compared to God’s perfection, he was just as sinful as his neighbors.  We humans are all in the same boat of sinful imperfection.  We all deserve the same punishment.  We tend to compare ourselves with others and think, “At least I am not as messed up as that guy…”   Somebody illustrated the fallacy of such comparisons like this: “If the requirement to get to Heaven was jumping up and touching the moon, there would be no significant difference between the contestants for ‘Biggest Loser’ and a member of the Celtics.”   The requirement for going to Heaven isn’t touching the moon, it’s having spiritual life.  And everyone who has ever sinned – that’s you and me – is spiritually dead.

God is willing to correct that condition, to give us His life, His Holy Spirit to live in our souls.  But first, because He is perfectly just, He must require that your punishment for sin be paid.  Because you cannot pay, because, even if you could pay you would sin again the next day, He paid.  He allowed His Son, Jesus, to pay your sin mortgage in full – forever – if you accept.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the (punishment for the) iniquity (sin) of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6 – my explanations in parentheses)

Accepting this gift begins with understanding the words, we all.  It requires acknowledging your own personal sinfulness and complete helplessness to fix your own spiritual deadness.  That’s what being “lowly and contrite” means in Isaiah 57:15 (See “In a Nutshell”). God said He will revive (bring back to life) the soul of the lowly and contrite. He will forgive and restore a person who is lowly and contrite.   That is, He will do so once the bill is paid.  And He offers to pay the bill.  Accepting this gift is like what you would do with the mortgage letter example we began with: – you say, “Yes.”   If you understand that there is no way you can fix yourself to become perfect, no way you can pay what you owe for being imperfect; if you understand that you really need God’s forgiveness, then say “yes” to Jesus.  Probably want to say, “Thank You,” also…