Lent Devotional - Day 12

Read John 6:25-71

Have you ever wondered, “How do I know if I have been called or chosen by God?” In today’s passage, Jesus says, “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” and “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” So what if God hasn’t drawn me?

I have discovered that following Jesus is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You prove God to be true by the decisions you make. If you follow Jesus, then you have been called by God and if you don’t follow Jesus then you have not been called by God. There’s actually a huge “you” factor involved in this. Do you want to believe and do you want to follow?

Following Jesus is never about feelings, but making wise decisions. Is it wise to follow Jesus? Do I believe what he says about life, the sinful state of humanity, and that salvation is found only in him? Then make the decision accordingly and live fully into the decision you make. There is no half-heartedly following Jesus. There’s no sitting on the fence.

When Jesus began to teach the heavy stuff, the thousands that followed him left. Why? Because many of us follow Jesus or believe in God simply for the immediate benefits. The crowd was fed by Jesus. Their physical needs were met and they were happy to follow Jesus. Now when Jesus turns to serious matters and begins to deal with their souls and tells them that they need spiritual food, they all turn away.

They show by their actions that they were not drawn in by the Father.

The crowd asks Jesus, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” They don’t ask what they must believe, but ask what they must do. What we believe and what we do are tightly connected. We do what we believe. We believe what we do.

And so Jesus answers them, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

To believe in Jesus is to act: faith without works is dead and doing miraculous things without love is just noise. To believe in Jesus, we do the works that show we believe in Jesus, which means we have faith in Jesus. Jesus calls us to obey him and that’s how we show him we love him. Everything that we do for Jesus must come from love for him and we love him by doing everything he says to do: the greatest command being love the Lord with everything we are and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

Once Jesus talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, this turned people right off, but if we don’t have communion with Jesus then we have no relationship with him. True life is found in following Jesus. In order to follow Jesus, we must come into the family of God, which begins with baptism then communion. Do you have fellowship with Jesus and his bride?

You can’t love Jesus without loving his bride. You cannot love God whom you cannot see, and not love those that you can see. Fully believe in Jesus and do everything he has commanded.