| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 11 |
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These men, who had lost Jesus in the desert, after vainly searching for Him far and near, crossed the sea and found Him on the other side. Then, when they found Him, they seemed almost to blame Him for disappearing, asking Him, “When camest thou hither?” Jesus answered, revealing to them their real motive in seeking Him, “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” That is, they sought Jesus, not to honor Him, but only for what they thought He would do for them. We are in danger of thinking of religion only or chiefly from the side of its earthly benefits, for it has the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come. But the higher blessings should be dearer to us than the lower. We should seek Christ fro His own sake and for the sake of the honor we may do to Him.
The lesson which Jesus taught the people that day, we should consider well for ourselves. He said, “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.” We live in a materialistic age, when the quest of the world is for money, for power, for things of the earth, and not for the things that are spiritual and enduring. Men are toiling and wearing out their life in gathering rubbish out of the dust, not thinking of the heavenly treasures, the spiritual things that are in Christ, and which they might have with half the toil and care. We ought not to spend our life in picking up things which we cannot carry through the grave. If we are wise, we will seek rather to gather treasures which we can take with us into eternity. Really, all we can carry out of this world is whatever we may have of character when we are through with living. The Beatitudes tell us what are the things that will abide. The fruits of the Spirit, of which Paul tells us, are the only qualities which will endure to eternal life.
The people seem to have caught at last from the words of Jesus a glimmering of the truth that there were better things to live for than they were yet striving after, and they asked Him, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” Jesus had said He would “give” them eternal life, but they wanted to “work” for it. People are always making this mistake — instead of accepting life as God’s gift they want to earn it. Jesus corrected their mistaken notion in His answer, “This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” There is abundant opportunity for working for Christ, but working does not come first. Having received eternal life through Christ as a gift, we are to work, presenting our body as a living sacrifice unto God. The first thing in the true life is to believe on Christ, to accept Him as the revealing of God to us, to commit ourselves to Him, and to let Him live in us. Then Christ becomes the inspiration of our life. He lives in us, and our life is just the working out of His life in us.
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