Jesus, the Bread of Life

The more I read the Bible the more impressed I become with how clever Jesus is. In the beginning of Chapter 6, when Jesus feeds the 5000 with five loaves of bread and two fish, do you think He was already planning to bring up the idea of the bread of life? It appears to me that He set the stage to be able to say – you want me to do more miracles and give you more bread. BUT, I have some better bread for you. Spiritual bread. When Moses and the Israelites were in the desert God sent them bread everyday to nourish them. Jesus says, just as the Israelites needed this physical bread daily, you need my spiritual bread daily to grow in your faith.

Another concept we talked about was the idea of testing God and asking for signs. For instance, asking God for a sign as to whether you should work for Qdoba or Dairy Queen. Later in the day, someone talks about a burrito they just had from Qdoba and you think that’s it! That’s my sign. The problem with this is it could just be a coincidence. Asking for a sign is easy – it doesn’t require any time spent with God. Throughout the Bible, God fights for us to have a relationship with Him. He wants us to be so close to Him that we recognize His voice and learn to follow Him by the Holy Spirit’s guidance rather than a “sign.”

So, some thoughts for the week:

How are you doing at getting your “daily” bread?

Why is it so hard to make the time to read the Bible and talk to God every day?

Are you asking for signs or are you making the time to listen to God’s voice?

What is the Spirit guiding you to do this week?

When is He telling you to speak or when to wait?

Who is God in the process of drawing to Him that He might want you to help along?

God's Voice

Church is so much more than a building. It’s a community of people living life together, working out their faith together, and striving to impact the world for Christ. We ate together, prayed together, studied the scriptures together, and then we had fun. Last night we WERE the church.

We read through John 6:1-24. We talked about hearing God’s voice, knowing when He was speaking to you, or discerning when He was asking you to get in an intentional conversation with someone. In the passage Jesus tests Philip to prompt him to move towards faith and trust. We also see the people wanting to make Jesus king by force, even though His role was to be a servant and die for our sins. Out of this we asked two main questions:

How has God been testing you and for what purpose?

What are you trying to make Jesus that He isn’t?

So what have you felt God testing you in this week? Have you noticed that the more you draw near to Him, the more you are able to recognize His voice? Carly shared a good illustration. When you hardly ever talk to someone and they call you on the phone, you have to ask them who it is. If you talk to someone a lot, you know them immediately. This is the same way with God. The more we talk to Him, the more we hear His voice and know what He wants from us. Thoughts?

Last night we read through John 5:16-47. A couple key points we talked about were:

1) John was called a light that burned. How are you being a light to the people around you?

2) There is a difference between studying the scripture and letting it dwell in you. Today Nikole found this quote:

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Author Unknown

We have all heard the expression, "you are what you eat", but is also true to say "you are (and are becoming) what you think." What are you spending your time thinking about? Are you letting God's word dwell in you, changing you to be more like Christ?

3) Jesus can do nothing by himself, He relies on the Father. How are you doing with relying on God this week?

Feel free to comment and get a thread of discussion going on as we all continue to work out our faith in community!