Fourth Week of Lent ~ Tuesday

Do you believe that Jesus has everything you need? Everything for your every day, your every moment, your here and now and the future to come. The passage and scripture today is full of reasons to believe but it’s also full of truths so hard and clear and beyond our understanding on this earth that they can lead one to doubt as well. Which will you fall into? When Jesus says ‘don’t be afraid’ will you believe Him, even when it means walking on water? When Jesus says to eat his flesh and drink his blood, will you believe him even when costs your comfort?

As you read today’s passage, imagine that you are one of the twelve and hearing this for the first time... how would the words of Jesus impact you if you had never before comprehended His words before...

- Read John 6

This passage is great to read in the New International Translation

- Devotional Thought

​Feeding five-thousand, walking on water, participating in communion, placing all your eggs in the basket of Jesus being ‘the one’.

In this stage of His teachings, Jesus came out with some pretty revolutionary stuff. We read these passages over and over and we sometimes forget that there was a time that they hadn’t been spoken, there was a first time to these words being spoken to an unsuspecting crowd.

How would you feel if you say food multiplied before your eyes?

How would you feel if you saw someone walking on water?

We know in retrospect what the disciples only heard for the first time along their journey. It wasn’t a straight forward message that Jesus came to bring, He challenged authorities, He revolutionised thinking, He drew people away from what they had boxed themselves into and released them to do what they had never expected from themselves.

Jesus goes beyond, Jesus requires more, Jesus doesn’t muffle His words.

It takes courage to go to Him, courage to stay with Him. But it’s not courage as the world sees... having courage to follow Jesus means simply having the courage to believe. And once you believe, He is truly all you need.

- Passage to focus on 

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 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 them up at the last day.””

‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭35‬-‭40‬ ‭NIV‬‬

- Image for today 

Today’s image is of a butterfly resting on a hand. It takes courage for a butterfly to settle onto someone’s hand, but once it realised that the hand will not harm it, the courage turns into great joy as it finds the comfort to rest in a place it once feared going.

- Prayer 

Father God,

You are our resting place. We know that but we still need so much courage to truly believe we can rest in you. We pray for your peace beyond our understanding that will strengthen us to stand firm in what we know to be true. You are truth, but in this world we have so many things fighting for us to take as truth. Help us to take hold of your truth and to rest in it, knowing that nothing can separate us from the life we know you have for us.

- Active idea

Go for a walk today and look for the ways that nature has to rely on God. The bird, the flowers, the frogs and fish... none of them can store up or save for difficult times.... they just go day by day trusting that they will have all they need. How much more valuable are you that just by believing, your Father in heaven will have everything you need.

Thank you for joining me today! Hope to see you again soon!

Have a blessed Lent

~ X ~