Eat my flesh and blood: 'Relationship removals'
Word of caution: 'this post is not for everybody'. It will mostly resonate in the hearts of those who do the will of God all the time'.
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In John 6, Jesus performs one of his most known miracles:' the multiplication of bread and fish for a crowd of about 5000 people'. The miracle was so great that after that day, a crowd followed Him everywhere He went (Reference John 6:22-25).
Jesus had an inner circles of true disciples and He also had a crowd of people following Him only for His miracles, for bread and fish and to make Him King by force (John 6:15). As He said in John 6:26:
“Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.'
The extra crowd was not only following Him for more bread,food and miracles but they also wanted to make Jesus king by force.If such thing thing had happened, then the will of God for Jesus could be affected....
In the same way that Jesus was followed for His abilities, there are people in your circle who are following you with the intent of moulding you into a person that God never intended you to be. Those people occupy a space that could negatively impact on your ability to accomplish the will of God in your life. And in many cases, they want to mould you not because they have bad intents...but simply because they have not reached the true level of understanding that God has for your life.
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Does it sound familiar?
'You enter somewhere (a church,a building, a laboratory, a press interview room...and people get amazed by your wisdom,your generosity,your performance,your business mind, etc...and suddenly they decide on making plans for you that are not God's plan). Most of them even intend well for you, but unfortunately if you follow their plans then your destiny in Christ will be jeopardised.
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As it was Jesus habit, He used to scandalise Himself with certain statements that were not accepted by His audience. As He speaks to the crowd that follows Him (from John 6:27-48), he ends His talk with a controversial statement:
'I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
(John 6:48-58)
From that moment, a good number of followers left Him. They wondered: 'How can we eat His flesh and blood...this man is disgusting and revolting in the same time.'
From that moment, the perception that they had about Jesus totally changed. He moved from being a super hero food -would be King-provider to being a disgusting Man. There are many interpretations to His statement: 'Eat my flesh and blood' , and many of those interpretations hold true elements. However, in this post I will only focus on the effect of His statement on the people who were following Him.
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Most interpretations of John 6 tend to focus on one reason as to why the crowd was following Jesus:' Bread and fish and more food'. Though the focus of those interpretations is good, it is also incomplete, because the Bible says that the crowd was following Him to make Him king by force:
'Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.'
(John 6:15)
Becoming an earthly king was never God's plan for Jesus. Never. Before I carry on with the end of story, let us journey on to Romans 8:28:
'And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.'
In Romans 8:28, Paul writes that all things will work for the good of those who love God and who have been called to his purpose. Let us answer one quick question:
How do we show love to God?
According to Jesus, we show love by obeying God. In John 14:15 He says: 'If you love me, you will obey my commands.' In other words, Romans 8:28 also tells us that 'everything works for the good of those who obey [Keep God's commandments] God and who have been called according to His purpose.
Now, most of us know that everything Jesus did was the will of God. In John 12:49, Jesus said:'For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.'
All that Jesus spoke was coming from God...even the scandalous statement He made about 'eating flesh and blood'. That way, God was able to protect His will (or interest) since people got scandalised and never wanted to make Jesus king anymore...
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I told you in the beginning of this post: 'this message will not resonate with those who their lives the way they like...' I say this because a person who lives the way he/she like would have certainly accepted to become king if they were in Jesus shoes...
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If you are one of those people who live to do the will of God in ALL things, you will reach places where people will attempt to mould you into a person that God never intended you to be (e.g: a pastor, a king, a queen,etc...). When that day happens, remember that you will still have to decline. Remember as well that in spite of your decline or retreat (like Jesus did), certain people will persist in their proposal and the only way for them to go away will be a for a circumstance to work in a way that will turn you into a distasteful or disgusting person. When those circumstances occur, don't despair, it has to happen because certain people have entered the 'room of your life by force' and they need something that they will throw them off.
Once they are gone, God's interests through you will move forward.
Why is God so intrusive with those who love Him?
Those who love God [those who keep His commands or who live according to His will] are also profitable people in His Kingdom. God has a distaste for non-profitability and non-productivity. I refer you to the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) ,to the story of the fig tree (Luke 13:6-9), and the cursing of the fig tree by Jesus (Mark 11:12-25). People who love God [those who keep His commands] are productive; they bring souls to the kingdom, they equip the saints in the church through service, they live to implement the ideas of God on Earth...God has an interest in all the human beings but He has a particularly different interest for those who love Him to the point of ensuring that all circumstances work for their good. Notice the Romans 8:28 never says that 'all things work for the good of all human beings, it does not even say that 'all things work for the good of the saints (because there are saints who not fully dedicated to God).
Lastly, the parable of the talents also tells us an additional thing: 'the world is filled with people who don't obey God. As a result, God has to shift their mission to people who are reliable and who have proven themselves by obeying. This is what happened at the end of the parable where the mission of the lazy servant gets transferred to the one who proved himself through obedience. Because of the laziness and slothfulness within the church, those who obey will always abound in new visions and work and they carry God's interests relentlessly. Now tell me: 'how would God not be intrusive with people like that?'
I told you before: 'this post was not for everybody'.