Words of Jesus Podcast - Jesus Is Not Aladdin

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

Jesus did not come to make us prosperous. He came to make us into people of character who will not perish, come what may. Listen as Jesus parallels physical concepts with spiritual concepts. Though it's not written here the often heard cry recorded in the New Testament resounds, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." "...there is a friend sticks closer than a brother. " He wants to help. "And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children." Isaiah 54  ***Ch. 38 - Jesus Speaks of the Bread of LifeJohn 6:22-71The next day the people on the shore he had left sought Jesus but could not find him. They knew that no boat had been there but the one his disciples had entered, and they knew Jesus had not entered it with them.            Many other boats came to the place where he fed the five thousand. Those on these ships, hearing that Jesus was gone, sailed to Capernaum, taking with them many from the shore who were also searching for Jesus.            They found Jesus teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum and they said to him:             “Master, when camest thou hither?”            Jesus answered them, saying:            “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ‘Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.’ Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you; for him hath God the Father sealed.”            They said to him:            “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?”            Jesus replied:            “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”            Then they asked him:            “What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? What dost thou work?Our fathers ate manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.’”            Jesus answered:            “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ‘Moses gave you not that bread from Heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from Heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto the world.’”            They said:            “Lord, evermore give us this bread.”             Jesus said:            “I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye also have seen me and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Hello my friend and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host for the next half hour. I'm glad to have you here. I can't think of a better place for you to be. I don't want to be here by myself, so I'm glad that you make this a part of your day. Thank you so much. Hey, and if you think about it, why don't you write me an email? I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear where you are and where you're listening to

this and how you're listening to this particular show. So write to me at Don at ThinkRedInc.com. I'll give it to you again at the end of the program. At the end of a program, we always give the name and address of how you can get in touch with us and don't forget about thinkredink.com if you go there and you're looking around you see something that you'd like you need to know that our ministry is really all about getting these materials into your hands you'll never be charged you'll never be nobody's ever going to chase you down or tell you that we need your money we're going what we do do, freely we have received. Therefore, we feel like we should freely give.

And many of the friends of this ministry make it possible that we never have to ask people or charge people for what we do in the area of ministry. All right, we're talking in chapter 38 now in our book, The Words of Jesus. And we're talking about Jesus speaking of the bread of life. The next day the people on the shore he had left sought Jesus but could not find him. They knew that no boat had been there but the one that his disciples had entered.

And they knew Jesus had not entered it with them they're still looking for him they can't figure out how he got away from there surely he didn't walk on the water uh many other boats came to the place where he fed the five thousand those on these ships hearing that jesus had gone Capernaum, taking with them many from the shore who were also searching for Jesus. They found Jesus teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum, and they said to him, Master, whence camest thou hither? Jesus answered them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Ye seek me not because ye saw the

miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled labor not for the meat which perisheth but for the meat that endureth unto everlasting life which the son of man shall give to you for him hath god the father sealed they said to him what shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus replied, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. Then they asked him, What sign showest thou then that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers ate manna in the desert, and it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. I want to stop here and just mention, this was not an agreeable conversation. This was not

them saying, hey, you made it to capernaum we came over here because we heard you were here no he says well this is rough no he says you didn't come over here because i was here you came over here because i have the ability and i've shown you the ability and uh therefore Therefore, you're here to see me feed you. That's going to be a rough day if the Lord ever says that to us. But how often is this true? That we don't seek the Lord because we love him or because he is indeed our Lord. We seek him because of all the stuff he can do for us.

He can keep us out of pain. He can make our money go farther. He can make our clothes last longer. Whatever, you know, it's just unbelievable how selfish and ridiculous we are when it comes to, you know, our relationship with God. Well, he saw through this. And you're actually hearing them.

I know it's written to be very kind or I don't know, even considered perhaps civilized conversation. But I assure you, this was an argument. This was an argument. Now how do I know this? He says, you're following me because I feed you with bread. And you're following me because I feed you. You're following me because I give to you. And they say, now, wait a minute.

What do you want us to do? I want you to believe on the Son of Man. And they say, okay, show us some miracle. You show us a miracle, we can believe on you. And by the way, feeding people is a really nice miracle. Do you hear this? He was talking about bread, and it's not that they cared about him,

but they're out looking for bread these are manna gatherers and you know oh boy it's raining manna we don't you know what here it is these same people i told you before uh here it is the people who walked away from their homes they've walked away from their farming their gardens are overgrowing with weeds while they're out running around looking for Jesus. You might think that's commendable, but friend, I assure you it's not. These people are walking away from the work that fed them, looking for an easier way. Why should we go home and till and gather and cut and grind our wheat and make flour and make bread and bake bread? Why would we do that when this guy's giving it away for free?

This is not a good situation. I know it's kind of skipped over, and people don't really talk about it, but these people were nasty. They were nasty. They were looking for something to eat. And as soon as Jesus tried to take it off of that physical desire for food and say, you know, here's what I want you to do. I want you to follow me because of who I am. I want you to follow me because you believe in who I am and what I am and what I stand for. That's the people I want to follow me.

They took that very correction that Jesus put on them, turned it around and said, so what's wrong with feeding us? That would be a miracle. And if you do a miracle, then we can believe that you're the son of God. So everybody wins. We get something to eat and you get people who believe in you how about that wow you think it was really that sassy yeah i think it was just that sassy because jesus goes on to teach about himself being the bread of life. Let's not forget the story when Jesus was tempted. When Satan says, you hungry?

Jesus had already begun to devour his own organs. How do we know that? It says that he went 40 days without food, and he was an hungred, as it says uh in matthew what does that mean hunger had returned to jesus because fasting eliminates hunger for a while but when hunger returns it's the first sign of starvation starvation means that your body has ceased looking for food in its stomach it's ceased consuming fat and fat stores. And now it's starting to consume vital organs.

This was a bad situation. You can't get any more hungry than this. And Satan looks at him and says, You hungry? You know you can make these stones into bread. And Jesus answered him how? Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of god keep in mind the word that proceedeth from the mouth of god this is the bread by which we live this was an axiomatic thought in the mind of Christ that this is the most important thing. Hey, here we are balancing that spiritual and physical again.

Are we going to have to do this all of our life? Yeah, I'm afraid you are. Now, all right, let's continue with this story, and it will all fold together for you. They said unto him, Okay, what shall we do? That we might work the works of God. What do we need to do to please you? I mean, this is a big deal, us coming over here to Capernaum on this boat.

What do we need to do? And he said, this is the work of God that you could be doing at home while you're tending your own gardens and making your own bread and feeding poor for yourselves and that is that you believe on him whom he has sent this is the see god is the subject of the sentence what is it that we may work the works of of God. And he's saying, you need to believe on him whom he sent. That's me. Then they ask him, well, what sign showest thou then that we may see and believe thee? What does thou work?

What trick are you going to do? And he says, our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. So, you know, you're getting all stingy about bread. This is nothing new to receive bread from heaven. Don, do you really think it was that sassy? Mm-hmm. I really do. He says, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Jesus answered and said, verily I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven. See, we're still on the subject of bread here, aren't we? I thought we went to belief in Jesus. I thought we, I thought, how did we get back on bread? I'm telling you, that was the whole conversation. These people were, they wanted something to eat, and they knew he could give it. I don't think he's going to do it. Well, he says, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of

God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth light to the world. Now look, I think at that particular point they realized that Jesus' point was not to come and give bread to Israel, but to give the bread from heaven himself to Israel. That's how this was supposed to work. And I think that at that particular point, there was a mix in this crowd as they were switching in their own minds from physical bread to the spiritual bread that came from heaven. And I hear it in their answer. Then they said, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

Now see, this was a switch in the conversation. In other words, there was a repentance that went on here. All of a sudden, it wasn't so important to have a loaf of bread. They realized that it was God's will for Jesus Christ to be that bread from heaven. He goes on to say, Jesus goes on to say, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

But I said unto you that ye also have seen me and believe me not all that the father giveth me shall come to me and he that cometh to me i will in no wise cast out for i am come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me Now, jesus again is taking his words and using them physically spiritually spiritually physically physically spiritually back and forth in in his conversation saying that i am that bread that came down from heaven here i believe that he is attaching himself to that daily manna that came down from heaven i am that that came down from heaven i'm not a loaf of bread prepared in an oven i am the daily bread that manna that comes down friend this is why i'm i'm saying that salvation is not something that you go to church and get

like you'd go to the store and buy. Salvation is something that is an everyday thing. It's a constant progression toward a goal. Here we have Jesus depicting his ministry to us as a daily thing. Again, it also lends itself to the idea that Jesus is living with us daily. That he's not at the end of time waiting for us to get there. He's not waiting for everything to turn out like he always thought it would. He's living with us every day. This manna that fell in the wilderness, this is why I say,

take time every day to hear the voice of God. Every day. People ask a lot of times when I'm talking about prayer, do you believe that we should have certain times of prayer? No, I really don't. I think that if you don't come across three times a day that you don't throw your your sight heavenward and and uh and ask the lord to speak to you about a certain thing i don't think that you're i don't think you understand exactly

what his minute what he feels his ministry is to you but i always always compare this to the question, do you think we should cry at weddings? Well, what do you mean? Do I think we should? I think if you do, it's understandable. I think if you don't, it's understandable. But faking it or saying, oh my goodness, the wedding's about over and I haven't cried yet. It's just kind of ridiculous to put these things into a schedule. So do you think we should pray three times a day? Yeah, but not because the clock says so. And again, here we are dealing with things that sound contradictory. We need God to lead us every day and tell us what to do. And again, here we are dealing with things that sound contradictory.

We need God to lead us every day and tell us what to do. We need him to show us. We need him to call us to the throne of God. And then we can come boldly to the throne of grace. But if our intention is to go boldly, think about the subtle difference in come and go, if you're going to go boldly to the throne of grace because it's 9 o'clock, it's time to pray, or because, you know, I have to preach a sermon,

so we have to open in prayer. We're going to take up an offering, so we open in prayer. We're going to eat a meal, so we pray. Really? Really? Do you think that's the way we should do? Or should we be motivated from the inside? Should we cry at weddings? going to eat a meal so we pray really really do you think that's the way we should do or should we be motivated from the inside should we cry at weddings well it's not a matter of should we it's a man if you if you feel that you do that you should yeah i think you should should we cry at funerals well if you feel like that's what you need to do, then that's probably what you need to do. But, you know, to purposefully push these things, I don't know how smart that is.

Now, when it comes to receiving our daily bread from God, is that a matter of daily Bible reading? No, I don't think so. I think we should be familiar with our scriptures i think we should uh i mean i don't know how you can read this book once and not want to read it again i don't understand that there's many people who have there's many people who've just read several scriptures in there and feel like they're done with it uh you know they they learn enough or read enough to get them through sunday school or get them where they can answer the questions at the end of the of the week and in our sunday school quarterly or whatever purpose or or um uh whatever goal that they're trying to achieve uh they they just they do what they gotta do well when it comes to receiving from the lord this is not not necessarily in your power to bring about.

We have to rely on him to tell us what we need to do and when we need to do it. So what's the most important thing we can do every day? Take time every day to hear the voice of God. It's just something that you need to do. Now, if you take that advice, and you decide that you're going, I'm going to take time every day to hear the voice of God,

and you do like you have always done, and you go off by yourself, or I don't know, however you do it, and you sit there and spend an hour and a half with God talking to him, you're not listening to what I'm saying. Look, there's, you know, one of you is more intelligent than the other. One of them needs to speak and one of them needs to listen. I don't know how much time you've ever spent listening to God. These things are just hugely important. So when are we going to start?

I think we need to start today. If we do this on a daily basis, I think we can to start today. If we do this on a daily basis, I think we can expect the Lord to give us what we need on a daily basis. I think that there's a spiritual element to the prayer where Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray. Give us this day our what? Daily bread. Our daily bread.

And what is our daily bread? It's manna from our daily bread it's manna from heaven who is the manna from heaven jesus says i'm that manna from heaven you see all these things come together man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god the words from the mouth of god are bread. Jesus Christ is the bread of life. He says, if you ever eat this bread, and by the way, this is the test. If you ever eat this bread, you'll never hunger again. Friend, I'm going to tell you, you'd have a hard time

getting me to involve myself in some learning situation in some church somewhere for some you know some bible teacher or pastor or whatever sure i listen to what they have to say yeah i'm respectful to them and yeah i appreciate what they're doing i don't appreciate their office i don't appreciate the music i don't appreciate the fact that they usurp an authority that belongs to jesus christ when he says one is your teacher one is your rabbi no I don't appreciate that but I'm you know I'm respectful and I'll listen but you couldn't get me to trade five words from the mouth of God to 500 memorized from the finest and greatest book

on in the Christian bookstore today or you, you know, five hours of preaching of the hottest Christian seminar that you can find on the internet or whatever else. You couldn't get me to trade it for nothing. You know why? I've been fed from the bread that ceases that hungry thing where I'm always looking and always searching.

And you want to find somebody that has no idea what I'm talking about? He's the one that's hopping from church to church to church, preacher to preacher to preacher, teacher to teacher to teacher, new ideas, new denominations, new doctrines, new clothes. You know, we're all going to dress differently now. We're going to do our hair differently now. We're going to say certain things and do certain things. We're going to talk in Elizabethan English,

really big among some of the Quakers. We're going to use different kinds of languages. We're going to join all these clubs. You know what that person's problem is? Talk to them about it. Hey, I thought you were going down there to First Whatever Church hey i thought you were going down there to first whatever church i thought you liked it down there i thought you liked that preacher yeah we did well what's the matter i don't know his sermons are just as dry as dust oh really really

yeah so you sit in this congregation and you're thirsty. All the time Jesus says, you ever drink of this water of life? Man, you know what will happen? You'll never thirst again. Because there will be a spring of water from within you. You'll never thirst again. This water could come from inside. You can have this. Show me somebody who's, you know Jesus says busted is he that hungers and thirsts after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Are we just going to forget the last half of that scripture? Yeah, it's okay to be hungry. It's okay to be thirsty. But holy mackerel, friend, get filled for

Pete's sake. What are you going to do? Just go take a sip from every water fountain until your thirst is quenched? What's the idea? Why are you so hungry? Well, you know, we're thinking about changing churches. Well, I thought you liked it over there. Well, you know, we're not really being fed over there. Not being fed. Wow wow that just sounds so much like the story we just read they got no bread over there you know it was it was fine for a while but you know they got no bread why are you so hungry all the time your lord jesus says if you ever eat of this bread what bread the bread of life of me i am the bread of life you ever eat of this bread you What bread? The bread of life of me. I am the bread of life. You ever eat of this bread? You will never. Was he exaggerating? Was he speaking in hyperbole? Was he just trying to

make a point? Was he exaggerating? Was it sarcastic? What was that? Do you think we can believe what he actually said? Yes, I do. I do believe it. Friends, I've experienced it. I have eaten of that bread of life, and hunger is gone. I know where my source is. I know where to get fed. I know where to find the manna. I know where the manna is falling every day i want this for you i don't want you out there banging on every church door trying to find somebody with an answer none of them have any answers most of them are just just i mean can i just be so crass as to say? They're just in business. It's just a business with them. Look, I don't know how you have any confidence at all that your pastor's not going to blow his brains out tonight.

They're doing it everywhere. They just cannot face the fact that they cannot answer the questions that mankind has. Hey, preacher, if you're thinking about this, here's the idea. Why don't you quit? Buy yourself a pair of roller skates and go to work for the doggons' huds and make yourself a living until you get this straight. One is your teacher.

One's your rabbi. We have one Father in heaven. If you're not taking your congregation to those beings and leaving them there in front of the Father, leaving them there at the throne of grace, leaving them there at the feet of Jesus Christ, I'm afraid that might be your end if you have any brains in your head.

If you have any conscience in your soul if you have any conscience into your soul it's going to absolutely destroy you as you lay there at night unable to sleep watching a little fan turn around in the ceiling of your bedroom and wondering what where in the world do i go from here i try and i try and i try and i just can't get through i just can't get any answers you know i'm i'm as fallible as everybody else yeah you are that's why jesus says one's your teacher one's your rabbi and all of you are brethren all of you are brethren what is what is that supposed to mean we're all supposed to help one another get to the one who is feeding us that lovely bread of life that goes within our soul and feeds our soul,

and we will never hunger again. We go there and we're drenched with and quenched with the water of life, and we will never, ever thirst again. It's no way to build a church because when you get people in touch with the source, you put yourself in the place of a middleman and you're giving your customers

the phone number of the warehouse, what kind of salesman are you going to be? You're going to be a poor one. You're going to be a salesman that goes to work for the dog inside. All right. Not picking on you, friend.

I'm just telling you where I've been. And I'm ashamed of those years. And I don't want you to be. Let's take people to the feet of Christ and leave them there. All right, it's time for us to go.

Thank you so much for your notes of encouragement and your emails. Don at ThinkRedInc.com. It'll get your email into my hand. All right, next time, we'll see you then. Till then, Think Red Inc. Bye-bye. you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com.

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