The Bread He Gives For The Life Of The World

We are all on a life journey that begins before our birth in this world. Later on, we come to realize through the message of the Gospel of Christ, that this life journey extends into the realm of eternal life, even beyond our physical death. Lots of Bible stories shows how our life journey is accompanied with God’s love and purpose for our lives, and as always, the most common ingredient in all these stories, is our choices. When the war began in Rwanda in the 90’s, we embarked on an odyssey, a peculiar journey into exile. Every choice we made affected our destiny in ways that are indescribable. For e.g. our family chose to go south; I spent 10 years in different countries as a refugee, had several close calls with death. Yet, the whole time we were fed & clothed in miraculous ways. Years later, I understood the lesson: we needed to learn to trust God during the journey no matter how difficult it became. God fed us and protected us. Similarly, we walk through life facing all kinds of challenges and every day we make choices that affect our walk and the direction we face. God is looking to interface us. Some make choices that face the direction of God’s will and his original purpose for our lives; and others make choices that kick them out from God’s track and send them far away on a different track, when they choose what seems good according to their own eyes instead of using God’s perspective. We are called to discern wisely and choose the track of God’s will for our lives where God feeds us and heal us. In our OT lesson, we learn that God’s goodness finally visited the prophet Elijah after he was hungry, depressed, feeling hopeless. An angel of the Lord gave him food to strengthen him for the long journey ahead of him: 40 days and 40 nights towards Horeb the mount of God! I love that picture! God feeds us to strengthen us for our life journey. The truth is, whatever way choose, we worship that which we give our hearts to. That’s why Paul encouraged the Ephesians to behave themselves, like people who truly belong to God Almighty! Paul knew how difficult our life journeys would be, yet it’s no excuse for us to still mess up and choose to call evil, good and call good, evil. Every day we make choices. What lenses will we use? our own or God’s lenses. Paul is clear about choosing God’s perspective, he said: [“Even when things turn terrible in your life journey, don’t sin when angry, put away all falsehood, speak truth with each other, and accept truth as is, unadulterated, because that is the way of the children of God.”] Know that our lives are intertwined with each other; and what affects you, affects me also. The trouble is that as result of the many terrible choices humans continue to make, unfortunately the ills of our society continue to rise. Even so, God’s love and goodness and presence does not cease to walk with us, hoping that we would repent and turn back to God. If only we could realize that the Lord’s presence is never far from us even when we are in a tight spot, we could surely discern wisely what choices are worthy of God’s children. How can we know if our choices align with God’s will? First, do not worry if at this stage you realize that in the past, you have made bad decisions, which at times, have led to other unpleasant situations. Do not be afraid: This is the day of Salvation: Come to Jesus: He is the cure of all ills of our society, learn anew the best way to choose God’s perspective. The Holy Spirit will guide you into what pleases God: Jesus is the best kept secret of eternal satisfaction. As God says in Is. 55: “Everyone who thirst, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat.” This is a formal invitation to join God’s track where He feeds us and heals us. In this invitation the Father draws us to Jesus, because He is all we need; He is the bread of life that comes from heaven/from the Father. Jesus explained this with precise language, that the bread that he will give for the life of the world is his flesh. In other words, I will feed you of myself, the bread of life from heaven, so you can have life eternal. I WILL GIVE YOU OF MY DIVINE LIFE! So, Walk with Jesus with heads held high, you have been redeemed. Choose wisely every day in your life journey. Amen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Removing Other gods From The Father's House

Image
The Passover of the Jews was near. A big deal for Jews! They rehearsed and remembered their divine rescue from Egyptian slavery, a day that is ingrained in the minds of the children of Israel. As it was customary, Jesus would be in Capernaum often teaching about the Kingdom of God. After having spent a few days with his mom and brothers, he went to Jerusalem. In the Temple, the idea was that people of God gather; pursuing holiness and purity in front of a Holy God, so that God, would come and vindicate them. Remember they were conquered by Romans, they certainly had many prayer requests asking God to intervene in their lives. As part of the Passover celebrations were the Matzah: A simple meal, made from flour and water without any yeast: a symbol of the meager rations the Jewish slaves had to subsist on during their enslavement, and a reminder of the poverty and hardship they endured. When Jesus got to the temple, it was business as usual for Israel’s leaders. The very reason to come
Read more

If You Love Me You Will Keep My Commandments

Image
Good afternoon​, this is my first sermon so I’ll have to apologize that it won’t be as good as my father’s sermons.  I believe writing a sermon is a good way to explore how you feel about scripture and what it means to you personally.  While researching I found lots of different interpretations of the same text.  Not all of them made sense to me, It can be frustrating when you don’t understand. However I found that reading multiple interpretations can help form a more clear image in your mind.  Jesus said​, “ If you love me, you will keep my commandments .” At first, I read this as if it was a friend asking for you not to eat their slice of the pie if you value their friendship. But I realized there was more to it than that. Jesus goes on to say that “ They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me: and those who love me will be loved by my father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them .”  This adds more depth to the previous statement.  If we k
Read more

Gifts, Its Costs And The Intentions Behind

Image
  TUE Evening Prayer Reflection 061521 (1 Sam 1:21-2:11; Luke 20: 19-26) “ Gracious Lord, invade my being with your hope and your life, so that I may desire your will and experience the joy of being in your Kingdom. Enable everything about me: what I think, what I do, to discern your will. Amen ” The other day I saw a debate about corruption. The host went on tirade, bashing Nigeria to be the worst corrupt nation in the world. The guest disagreed and brought to everyone’s attention that those who point fingers at others are often plagued with an unparalleled hypocrisy. This raises the question about cultural differences in perceiving what society calls gifts and what it calls bribes. I am not an expert in this but there must be a difference. If we expect something in return and demand it, then clearly the gift becomes a bribe. Again, this can be tricky because the real issue is in our hearts. Now I visited an online dictionary called Britannica, it defines lobbying as, “ any att
Read more