Friday, January 7

Friday 

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.  For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said,  “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.”  So I declared on oath in my anger,  “They shall never enter my rest.”   - Psalm 95:6-11

We have been looking at the meaning of worship from the Psalms.  In particular, we have looked at Psalm 95 as an invitation to worship God with our whole lives.  The passage above includes the final verses of Psalm 95, and I have to admit that it is a little bit of a strange ending to a Psalm that is supposed to be teaching us to worship.  What is all this about God getting angry and declaring oaths against people?

It might sound like an odd ending, but there is a very important lesson for us here and it is actually not at all out of place in a Psalm about worship.  First, notice the critical phrase “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”.  This is

God telling us what it is that what he wants in worship, what makes worship true worship - that today we would listen to his voice!  That is what he wants. He wants us to heed his voice not just gather together.  It is fine for people to come to a worship service, but it is of little real value if all we do is sit/stand and nod while our thoughts are drifting elsewhere. The central fact of worship is to listen to the word of God, to hear the voice of God.

The key to understanding this part of the Psalm is to know a little about that part of Israel’s history that this referred to here. It occurred shortly after the Israelites had come through the Red Sea and had journeyed only a week or two into the wilderness. They came to a place where there was no water, they had hardly had time to become very thirsty when the leaders of the people came to Moses and began to complain. "What are you doing? Leading us out into this wilderness to perish? Where is this God that is supposed to be taking care of us? Why hasn't he provided water for us?" They demanded that God prove himself again. This is the point God is making in Psalm 95. They put him to the test. They said, "Where is this God? If there really is a God who loves us and takes care of us, why doesn't he supply our need?"

Their hearts were set on the wrong things. Read the account and you can see what he meant. This was a generation that actually wanted to go back to Egypt (you know, Egypt, where they were slaves!). They wanted to return to Egypt and kept longing for the melons, the leeks, garlic, and onions of Egypt. Why would they want onions, leeks, and garlic?  I don't know!  The point is they thought only of their bellies, their appetites and desires, and God says therefore their hearts were wrong.

That is what it means to harden your heart. It indicates that you have not learned anything from God.  This is the problem God has with us. I think it must upset God that people can come week after week after week and hear stirring songs of praise, and messages from His word, and stories of what he is doing in many lives and see the evident change that has come to many and the release and freedom he is bringing about in so many hearts, and still, the minute anything goes wrong with them they are ready to fall apart and forget God.

One of the key aspects of worship is to learn how to rest in God.  Rest means to depend upon God's activity and not ours.  Hebrews defines it, "he that has entered into rest has ceased from his own works" (Hebrews 4:10).  That is what rest is.  It is really mental health, peace of heart, peace of mind, a sense of security in God.  That is what God wants for you and me.  He wants us to be secure, to be able to cope with whatever may come in our lives.  This kind of rest will only come to us as we hear His voice.  There is no other way. There is no alternative path.  There is no drug you can take that will give you rest.  There is no pursuit you can follow, no book you can read, no practice you can undertake, that will bring you true peace of heart and mind.  There is simply no alternative; you cannot come into His rest if you will not hearken to His word.

Father, help us to hear your voice as we worship.  Keep us from hardening our hearts against you.  Teach us by your Spirit to learn to rest in you – Amen.

Thursday, January 6

Thursday

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.  Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.  For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods.  In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.  The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.  Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.     – Psalm 95:1-7

The heart of this Psalm is an invitation to worship.  The Psalmist makes several different appeals for God’s people to come and worship Him.  Each appeal (there are at least 3 that I see in this Psalm) is to a different aspect of the individual and taken all together, these three appeals tell us something very important about the nature of Christian worship.   

The first appeal is right there in the very first verse.  Notice the phrases; “sing for joy”, and “shout aloud”.  This is an emotional appeal.  The Psalmist is telling us to worship God through feeling and emotion.  Of course, we should feel something when we come to worship our God.  If you can sing of God’s incredible power, creativity love, grace, justice, mercy, compassion, righteousness, kindness and forgiveness without feeling any sense of joy or awe, then you might be able to carry a tune, but you are not worshiping!

The second appeal comes in the very next verse.  Notice how the Psalmist says, “For the LORD is…” and then goes on to list just who God is and what He has done.  This is a rational appeal, it is an appeal to our reason.  In effect, the Psalmist says, look around you, see what God has done, reflect on the beauty of creation and the wonder of life, think about these things, and see if you are not moved to worship the one who is responsible for it all.  This means that thinking, as well as feeling, are a part of what it means to worship.  You may go to a worship service and be deeply moved by the power of the music.  You can feel inspired and uplifted, but if your mind is not engaged and directed toward the Almighty God, then you are not really worshipping, you are just having an emotional experience.

The third appeal is found in the final sentence of this passage. The Psalmist calls us to come and bow down, to kneel before God.  Kneeling and bowing the head were signs of humility and reverence.  It requires an intentional decision to kneel, you must choose to bow before God.  The appeal here is not just to feel and think, but to do something in response.  This is an appeal to our will.  True worship must impact more that our heads and our hearts, it must change our lives – it must impact the way that we live.  You can have an emotional experience, you can even think heavenly thoughts, but if your life is not impacted at all by what you think or feel, then you are not worshipping God!

Do you see how all-encompassing worship is for the Christian?  God wants all of us; heart, head and body.  This is a challenging call!  Many churches and individuals overemphasize one aspect of worship to exclusion of the others.  There are some that are all feeling and emotion when it comes to worship, but they are not grounded in the truth and there is no engagement of the mind for God.  There are others who have relegated worship to merely good theology or sound doctrine, but it is devoid of life and the Spirit.  There are even those who think the only way to truly worship God is to be an activist, to get out and do something for Him.  But too often these activists lose sight of why they are doing what they are doing and who they are doing it for.

I think we all have a kind of natural worship temperament.  We kind of have a natural bent toward one of these three appeals.  This is a good thing, I believe it is even a God-given thing.  My natural bent is the rational approach.  I love to read and study and think about God.  However, this does not mean that I get a pass on the other aspects of who I am.  My worship is incomplete and unhealthy, and displeasing to God if I never engage my heart and if it does not translate into my everyday life. 

What about you?  What is your worship temperament?  Are you more of a thinker, feeler, or doer when it comes to worshiping God?  Which of the three appeals is most difficult for you?  In which area do you struggle to engage with God?  Take a few moments to thank God for the temperament He has given you and ask Him to help you learn to worship you with all of who you are.

Wednesday, January 5

Wednesday

Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.  Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.  Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.  Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.  – Psalm 150

This is the last of the Psalms.  Notice how many times you see the word “praise” in this Psalm, 13 times in 6 verses.  In fact, this word is used over 200 times in the book of Psalms.  It is no accident that the final phrase of the final Psalm is “Praise the LORD.”  Praise is the fundamental purpose for why the Psalms were written.  Halal is a primary Hebrew root word for praise. Our word "hallelujah" comes from this base word. It means "to be clear, to shine, to boast of, to rave about, celebrate, to be clamorously foolish."  Praise is at the heart of the Christian life; it is what we were made to do, and what we will do for all eternity!  Praise can be distinguished from worship in that worship is something that encompasses all of our life and our total being, while praise is a specific act we engage in.

C.S. Lewis once commented that when he first began to believe in God, he used to struggle with the idea of a God who is always telling his people to praise him and demanding praise from his creation.  Lewis said he felt that if God was really so great, then He wouldn’t need to be praised.  After all, nobody likes to be around a person who continually needs to be praised.  Lewis even remarked that he couldn’t stomach the idea of a God who seemed to be saying, “what I want most is to be told how great and wonderful I am.”  But Lewis admits that he missed something critical about the nature of what it means to praise.  The following excerpt from his book Reflections on the Psalms has been a great help to me; take a few moments to read it carefully.

But the most obvious fact about praise-whether of God or any thing-strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise-lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game-praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least…I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. (C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, pp. 93-95)

The basic idea is that God tells us to praise Him more for our sake than for His!  In commanding us to praise and glorify Him, God is actually inviting us to enjoy Him!  We delight to praise what we enjoy – Do you enjoy God?  Do you want to?

Then praise Him!

Tuesday, January 4

Tuesday

All of the Psalms are designed to teach us to do one thing - to worship. The Psalms reflect every human emotion, but they do so in a distinct and important way: they are emotions seen in relationship to God. Every Psalm is written in the presence of God. This book, therefore, teaches us how to be honest before God.

If you have a problem, tell God about it. Don't hide it. Don't cover it up.  Don’t pretend that it (whatever it is) isn’t bothering you. Especially, don't get pious and sanctimonious and try to smooth it over with religious speech.  When you stop and think about it, it is really ridiculous for us to think that we can hide our true feelings from God.  Who do we think we are fooling?  Do we really think that God would rather have us put on a good religious face and pretend to be happy and joyful in His presence when we are really feeling discouraged or fearful?  If you are angry with God, say so. If you are upset about something he has done, tell him so. If you are resentful, bring it out. If you are happy and glad, express that too. That is what worship is – an honest heart.  In fact, you can actually worship God better shaking your fist at Him than by offering a bunch of religious speech that you do not really mean.  As Jesus said to the woman at the well in Samaria, "The true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth." (John 4:23)

God is looking for that kind of worshiper. And as you learn to worship in Spirit and truth, you will discover a new source of strength. If you can be honest before God, even about those troublesome problems and even in the midst of bad moods and attitudes, you will gradually find His grace answering your questions and meeting your needs.  As we said earlier, all Psalms are designed to teach us to worship.  But there were a few Psalms that were at the very center of the corporate worship of God’s people in the Old Testament. 

The 95^th Psalm is one of a series of psalms which the Israelites sang together as they went up to the temple in Jerusalem to worship (these Psalms are often referred to as the “Psalms of Ascent”).  This series begins with the 93^rd and concludes with the 100^th Psalm. Each of these is a demonstration and exhortation on how to worship. They are not only magnificent poetry but they are also instructions on what worship is and how it is to be done.

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.  Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.  For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods.  In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.  The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.  Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.     – Psalm 95:1-7

Do you see what the Psalmist is doing?  He is giving the basic reasons why everyone should worship God.  They apply not only to those of us who are believers but to all men, whether they acknowledge it or not.  Each man has a responsibility to praise God, for all are creatures of his hands.  Have you ever considered that worship is a debt that you owe to God?  In the first chapter of Romans the Apostle Paul points out that one of the charges God brings against men is that  “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21)  They did not care to recognize their relationship to him. 

The truth is that sometimes I just don’t feel like worshipping God.  I can be self-absorbed and prideful to the point that I actually think my life is all about me.  I am too easily distracted and too often forgetful of God.  The Psalmist calls us away from focusing on ourselves, and calls us to consider who God is, what He has done, and who we are in relationship to Him.  This is the foundation of our worship – not our needs or our desires, but the character and nature of our God!

You cannot focus your mind & heart on Him while you are consumed with yourself.  What are you worried about?  What are you stressed about?  What are you angry about?  What are you afraid of?  What do you obsess over?  What are you confused about?  What are you trying in vain to control?  Whatever it is, tell God about it (hint – He already knows), then as you begin to worship, let Him shift the focus of your heart from you to Him!

Monday, January 3

Monday

Psalm 6:9 - The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer. 

Psalm 17:6 - I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer.

Psalm 54:2 - Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth.

Psalm 65:2 - O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come.

Psalm 66:19-20 - but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.

Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!

Psalm 88:13 - But I cry to you for help, O LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you.

Psalm 141:2 - May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

This week we began a new sermon series called “Honest to God; the language of prayer”.  We also begin a new series of “10 Minutes with God” devotions that will be centered on prayer in the Psalms.  This series is focused on growing in our practice and experience of prayer through a study of some of the key Psalms in the Bible.  The Psalms have historically been the place God’s people have gone to learn how to pray.  They are in fact the prayerbook of the Bible in that they contain a record of the prayers and praises of God’s people. 

One of my favorite little books on the Psalms was written by the German theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called Prayerbook of the Bible; An Introduction to the Psalms.  In this book, Bonhoeffer calls the Psalms “the great school of prayer”, and he asserts that we humans don’t really know how to pray. When left to our own devices we can’t find the words of true prayer. We must join the disciples in asking Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray!” (Luke11:1).  Sin has permeated our whole being, even to the point of affecting our ability to discern what we really need. Bonhoeffer writes, “It is not just that for which we ourselves want to pray that is important, but that for which God wants us to pray. Not the poverty of our heart, but the richness of God’s word, ought to determine our prayer” (p.157).

We are not the best judges of what we need to pray for. God tells us what we need and tells us how to begin to align our prayers with what God wants us to need. This is why Bonhoeffer turns us to the Psalms. In the Psalms we learn the language of prayer. There is a discipline to the practice of prayer. It does not come easy. Why would we expect learning to talk with God would be easier than learning to drive. Learning to drive took me days of sitting at the wheel with my dad sitting by my side graciously showing how not to stall every time I let out the clutch (remember manual transmissions?).  I stalled all the time at first, but slowly I started getting the hang of it. This is what Bonhoeffer means when he talks about the Psalms as “the school of prayer.”

His analogy is better than mine:

The child learns to speak because the parent speaks to the child. The child learns the language of the parent. So we learn to speak to God because God has spoken and speaks to us. In the language of the Father in heaven God’s children learn to speak with God. Repeating God’s own words, we begin to pray to God. We ought to speak to God, and God wishes to hear us, not in the false and confused language of our heart but in the clear and pure language that God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ.

We learn to speak by repeating God’s words to us and for us. The Psalms are God’s gracious gift to us. Through their words we learn how to speak the language of God back to God. We submit our self-centeredness to God and allow him to shape our desires. 

May we all learn how to better speak and listen to our Father in this new year! 

Jeff Frazier

2011

If you’re like me (Ken), today your sights are turning towards 2011.  The new year is coming, and we know this because of the countless “quit smoking” commercials that are gracing the episodes of American Pickers I’ve been watching.  And it makes me wonder: What are you hoping for this next year?

A new job?

To lose weight? (me too!)

To quit smoking?

A new baby? (not me!)

A restored relationship?

A new relationship?

A new house?

To make more money?

To give away more money?

To finally finish that project?

A deeper relationship with GOD?

Maybe you’ll sit down with a piece of paper this weekend and write out your goals.  I like to do that, in fact I do it several times a year (if you want some help with that, I’ve uploaded a worksheet we use with the college/career ministry here).  Most of you will think about them, but they won’t end up written down anywhere.  And most of us will end up giving up at some point, or not accomplishing the goal the way we wanted to.  Come on...you know it’s true.

In the early 1900’s, the London Times requested essays from a number of notable writers, including prolific author G.K. Chesterton, to answer the question: What is wrong with the world?  Here is G.K. Chesterton’s response:

Dear sirs:

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton’s response was certainly the shortest, and yet, likely made the most brilliant point of all the essays received.  What Chesterton was able to explain in two words (that, by the way, only use a total of 3 letters! For some perspective, this blog post is: 907 words), is that each of us adds to our own problems, and ultimately to the word’s problems.

Chesterton’s point seems to be that we often point the finger at someone else, that in our minds, the locus of the problem is often in someone else’s hands, rather than our own.  Maybe that will be the case for you and your New Year’s goals.  “It’s his fault,” you’ll say when you didn’t get the new job.  “I just didn’t have enough time,” you’ll say while turning on the television as the project you started this year still sits cold and unfinished in your garage next December.

So, what would make the difference?

Well, some goals can be accomplished through sheer determination and will, which for most of us, means turning off the TV, writing down a plan of action and a date you want to finish it, and going at it.

But some goals need help.  And for those goals I want to suggest that the remedy is total dependance on GOD through prayer.  What I mean by this is consistent, regular prayer; it includes inviting others to pray with you and for you.  If there is one thing I learned in 2010, it’s that GOD is near to us when we pray.  Deuteronomy 4.7 has proven to be true to me over and over again: What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?

Paul tells us in Philippians 4 that GOD is near, and that his nearness is what removes our anxiousness when we pray.

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4.5-7

Several years ago I heard legendary seminary professor from Dallas, Howard Hendricks, speak, and something he said still sticks with me today: “If you can do it without prayer, is it really worth doing?”

  

The great reformer, Martin Luther, once famously said: “Tomorrow I plan to work, work, from early until late. In fact I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

So, what are your hopes for 2011?  Who are you depending on to accomplish them?  As we’ve been studying all week, our sufficiency, our hope, our everything, is found in Christ and Christ alone.  Could not also our hopes for 2011 be found in him as well?

Could we take our plans, our hopes, our fears for 2011 to Him in prayer?

Take a moment and meditate on the great hymn: What a Friend we have in Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus, 

all our sins and griefs to bear! 

What a privilege to carry 

everything to God in prayer! 

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear, 

all because we do not carry 

everything to God in prayer. 

Have we trials and temptations? 

Is there trouble anywhere? 

We should never be discouraged; 

take it to the Lord in prayer. 

Can we find a friend so faithful 

who will all our sorrows share? 

Jesus knows our every weakness; 

take it to the Lord in prayer. 

Are we weak and heavy laden, 

cumbered with a load of care? 

Precious Savior, still our refuge; 

take it to the Lord in prayer. 

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? 

Take it to the Lord in prayer! 

In his arms he'll take and shield thee; 

thou wilt find a solace there.

He is a true friend indeed!

- Ken Lippold

Security

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. - John 6.35

Now, to really understand what Jesus is saying here when he claims to be the bread of life we have to know the context.

At the beginning of chapter 6 Jesus feeds this huge crowd, the text says 5,000 men besides women and children, most scholars explain that somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 thousand people were present.

So, we’ve got this miracle and then right after that Jesus is teaching this same crowd who followed him to the other side of the lake, and He says that he is the bread of life.  If you’re like me (Ken), you’re probably wondering: “what is the connection?” or at least: “what is the point?”

What is the point of this miracle?  Why does Jesus do this and then call himself the bread of life?

Well, I think the answer is found in John chapter 6 verse 4: The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

It’s this little detail that John gives us that opens this whole thing up.

Like us today, when major holidays or festivals would come around the ancient Hebrews would study the significant passages related to that holiday.  So when the passover feast would come around they would have been studying and reading through all the passages in the Hebrew Scriptures about the passover in their synagogues.

There is one miracle in particular related to the passover in the Old Testament that shows us exactly what Jesus was trying to explain with this miracle and by claiming to be the bread of life.  If you have some time, read Exodus 16.1-16, if not, I’ll summarize for you.

Right after the Exodus, Israel finds itself in the desert and they are all grumbling and complaining about having enough food to eat. In fact, they were kind of bemoaning the fact that GOD had taken them out of Egypt where it seems that they could just sit around eating entire pots of meat.

So, instead, GOD provides for them bread in the morning and quail in the evening.  I love this part: at the end of the passage in verse 15, the text reads: When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was.  

Do you know what the word Manna means in Hebrew?  It means “what?”  They had never seen anything like this before, so they didn’t know what to call it, so they started calling it “what?”

I can just image the Abbott and Costello routines going on:

What did you eat for breakfast today?

What?

(Louder this time.) What did you eat for breakfast today?

What?!

(Even louder this time.) WHAT DID YOU EAT FOR B-R-E-A-K-F-A-S-T TODAY?!?!

WHAT!!!

This bread symbolized for them GOD’s provision for their needs.

So, this passage would be fresh in their minds as Jesus does a very similar miracle.  Jesus calls down bread from heaven and provides just enough bread for everyone to eat.  When Jesus feeds all of these people, he is intentionally pointing people back to GOD’s provision of manna in the desert.

Then John tells us that when the crowd finally catches up with him again, he says "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” - John 6.35

There was this belief that had arisen by the first century that when the messiah finally did come he would do a bunch of the same miracles that Moses had done.  One of the key ones being bringing down manna from heaven.

The common belief of the day was that there was this storehouse of manna in heaven, that GOD had opened up during the era of Moses, and that the storehouse would be re-opened by the Messiah.

There was this prophecy in a really significant Jewish writing that said: “The treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years.”

So, what is Jesus claiming through all of this?

(By the way, I think Jesus chooses to use bread as the imagery here because it’s far more poetic to say that you are the bread of life rather than the quail of life.)

To really understand what Jesus is claiming you have to know that for the ancient world, and really for many in our world today, if you had bread you were secure, it means you will live to see another day.

We don’t live like that here.  We have so much food it’s ridiculous, for them food is about survival and security, for us food is about enjoyment and pleasure.

So, when Jesus claims to be bread, he is claiming to be security. Notice what he goes on to say...

36But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." - John 6.36-40

So when he claims to be the bread-messiah he is saying that he offers more security than physical bread.  He offers a secure and final provision for freedom from sin and death.

I think there is a strong connection with John chapter 1 here.  In John chapter 1, the apostle John, the author, got the chance to say: Look the preeminent one, the Word, the one who spoke the world into being, the one who sustains the world, the true form is here: what else are you looking for?”

I think it’s in this passage that Jesus gets to say: “Look, I’m the bread of life, I’m the one who offers you security, not Rome, not physical bread, not the security of your borders, it’s me: what else are you looking for?”

Jesus explains that all who take of the bread of life are secure, he will lose none who the Father has given him.

So today I will simply ask: Where is your security found?  In you job?  In your possessions?  In your bank account?  Or is it found in Christ and Christ alone?

- Ken Lippold