John 6:51-66
What on Earth is going on here? If something like this happened today, we would call what Jesus did a mistake! Feeding people information before they’re ready for it, or any action that loses almost all of your followers at the same time would probably be considered a mistake by anyone’s standards. But of course, Jesus never made mistakes.
I’ve been praying a lot about those verses and some others (including the rich young ruler, the cost of following Jesus, and the things that make you unworthy of following Christ like burying your father), and have come to the conclusion that Jesus is really after people completely sold out for Him. He’s not looking for thousands of people willing to give some of their life – He’s looking for the very few that will give all of their life to Him. Acts wasn’t a result of the tens of thousands that heard Jesus when He was living, believed in Him, and went back to their lives… Acts was a result of the 150 or fewer that gave up all they had and had nothing they could do except cry out to God for Pentecost to come.
As I look around here, I see the same thing. Almost ten thousand churches and over 1 million new believers, most of them in formerly Muslim areas… This revival wasn’t a result of thousands of Christians giving a little to the cause – it was just a few people giving absolutely everything they had for over 30 years! Missionaries and Mozambicans alike, the story is the same - it's the few who gave all who have changed the nation.
This makes so much sense, though! God is so big and there is so much of the Christian life to experience, and he only asks one thing from us – our life. For most of us, our entire Christian life will be spent with God trying to coax us to give up a bit of our life at a time. God does something amazing in our life, and we pay attention to Him for a while, then we go back to our lives. Or, for the more steady ones of us who often have a devotional time, God will gently tell us about something in our life we need to give up and get louder and louder until we pay attention. If God convicts us of our eating habits, we may cut back a bit, but only until we can deal with our conscience again. A couple years later, it comes up again and God asks us to give up a little more… As a rule, we want as much of our life as we can keep while having Christ in us.
WHY?!? Do we see Mark 16:17-18 in our lives? John 14:13? John 16:13? Matthew 7:7-8? They’re all promises from Jesus to the person who lives Christ’s life instead of their own. If the only thing that’s keeping you from that life is you, what would you do? God will give us tastes of that life to lure us into greater communion with Him, but He will never take our life without our permission. No wonder the author of Hebrews tells us to throw aside everything that hinders and run (Heb 12:1)!
I’ve seen it in almost every area of my life. Finances – before I trusted God, I was thousands of dollars in debt. Now I have no debt, even after giving away several thousand dollars and going on 5 mission trips! Purity – I got so sick of my struggle with pornography in college that I just got rid of my computer. Now I’ve been blessed by being able to help others out of the same situation. Ministry – I used to try and do a lot for God, but there was no real fruit until I gave up and let God do it. Now I get to see people saved, healed, and delivered almost weekly!
In the parable of the sower, Jesus doesn’t talk about good seed that only bears 2 or 3 other Christians – the lowest amount He lists good seed producing is 30 others! I used to think that I was doing pretty good if I brought one other person to Christ, and statistically, I was right. But God’s got so much more for our lives… God is faithful, loving, and intricately involved in our lives – we would all agree with that. So the promises He’s given us and we don’t see in our lives certainly aren’t His fault… I’m convinced more and more each day that our Christian life doesn’t get completed at Gal 2:20 – it starts there.
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