Daily Devotionals

Are We There Yet? Week 4 Thursday

But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of His approval.” John 6:27

Throughout this time battling the Coronavirus pandemic which our world has been facing, I keep telling myself, “It is not always going to be this way.” This saying has been a motto of sorts for me. Life, as far as I know and understand, is not always going to look like this. It is a temporary, albeit extremely long and heartbreaking, time. I have hope for brighter, better days. Indeed, this time has reminded me that this entire world is temporary. In fact, Scripture teaches that it is a vapor (James 4:14). It is quickly passing away each day. What is more, eternity and the hope of eternal life with Jesus Christ is what followers of Christ have waiting for them. 

In John 6, Jesus addressed a large crowd of people who were amazed by the miracles that He had performed. In fact, He had just fed 5,000 people from two fish and five loaves of bread. As He was talking to them, He knew that many of them had come to Him because He had performed the miracle and given everyone bread. Knowing this, He told them that life was much more than perishable things like bread. “But don’t be so concerned about the perishable things like food,” He said. Instead, He encouraged the crowd, saying, “Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you” (John 6:27). Jesus was teaching the crowd that day that this world is fading away. The things we store up on earth like money and physical possessions will eventually pass away. Because of this, Jesus wanted listeners to start living for and focusing on the things that are eternal: things of the Kingdom of God. 

The message from Jesus in John 6 was not just for listeners that day; it is for our families, and for us, too. You see, it can become so easy to focus on the things of this earth. It can be so easy to live for the things on earth that we can see today and forget to focus on the things that are eternal that will last forever. On our best days and on our worst days, we can place our confidence in God and in His eternal Kingdom. May we look firmly to Him and live for Him, teaching our children to ground their lives in Christ as well.

Moving Toward Action

Regardless of how difficult and hopeless life feels to you, if you are a follower of Christ, you have hope of eternal life one day. Spend time journaling about the hope you have in heaven. Thank God that you have hope, even in the hardest times. Then, talk to the children in your life about the hope of eternal life that His followers have one day.

Going Deeper

Read John 6:22-59 (NLT)

The next day the crowd that had stayed on the far shore saw that the disciples had taken the only boat, and they realized Jesus had not gone with them. Several boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the Lord had blessed the bread and the people had eaten. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him. They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”

They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”

Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”

Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But you haven’t believed in me even though you have seen me. However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.”

Then the people began to murmur in disagreement because he had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

But Jesus replied, “Stop complaining about what I said. For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. As it is written in the Scriptures, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. (Not that anyone has ever seen the Father; only I, who was sent from God, have seen him.)

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”

Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.

So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did (even though they ate the manna) but will live forever.”

He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.