Whatsoever Things Are True
by Dan Coburn
Pastor, Emmanuel Baptist Church
pastordan@mtida.net
Lots of grain. Praise the Lord.  What do you think of when you see all the grain trucks go by?  Employment?  Payoff for a job well done?  Blessings from God?   All of these are applicable, but what I think of is bread.  What was bread to the people of Jesus’ time, or even before?  It was life. It was the staple  of the day. Some had good bread, while some made bread out of less desirable grains. Virtually all meals had bread, while in some, bread was the main course. Everyone knew, without bread, there was going to be hunger. Bread doesn’t do the body much good unless it is taken in. The Psalmist knew this when he wrote: “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.” - Psalm 34:8-10.  Hundreds of years before Christ, Godly people recognized a basic need for Spiritual things (note the “taste and see” above)  Spiritual Switch. We finite people struggle with the question: “Is the Holy Word of God literal or figurative?”  The answer is – wait for it — Yes. Nicodemus struggled: “How can I be born again? Can a man enter a second time into his mothers womb?”  Jesus was talking not about the physical birth, but a Spiritual birth, and said so - John 3.  In the following chapters Jesus told the woman at the well that she needed the water He provided in order to cease thirsting. She wanted literal water out of the well, while He was talking about Himself, and the Spiritual thirst from which we all suffer.  In Chapter 6, the pharisees demanded a sign (right after Jesus fed some fifteen or so thousand with five biscuits, and a couple of sardines), citing Moses feeding folks for forty years with manna.  Jesus corrected them, telling them that Mosses fed them nothing, but His Father in Heaven. Then He pointed out a small detail; that even though they ate the manna, they all died eventually. Jesus told them “I am that bread of life” - 6:48. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” 6:51.  When Mary and Martha chastised Jesus for not coming when they called Him, to aid their dead brother, Jesus replied “I am the life”.   In John 10:10, He said: “I am the door”.   Again, Spiritual things.   If you struggle with these sayings, let Jesus settle it for you as He did His rebellious audience here in John 6: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” - vs 63.  “But there are some of you that believe not” vs 64a. 
What are you trusting in?   Are you really a good person?  Are you good enough?  Are you trusting in a ritual?  Are you trusting in membership in a particular denomination? Giving?  It’s not that complicated. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hah raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”  Rom. 10:9.   God Bless. 

Cottonwood, Idaho 83522
 

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