Life Spark: God will speak to about life in Jesus in understandable terms. (John 6:43-59)
Jesus told the crowd of miracle seekers that everyone who comes to Him is drawn by God. Those who respond to God’s magnetism go through a process: listen, learn, believe and live. It starts with God. God initiates this process and we choose our response. God makes us spiritually hungry.
“I am the bread of life.” (John 6:48, NIV) That is a metaphor. Jesus’ teachings are rich with analogies, metaphors, parables and history. These four teaching tools help a teacher take something unfamiliar to the listeners and make it understandable by comparing it to something similar that that the listeners are familiar with. Bread. Everyone knows about bread. No one says, “I don’t understand. What is bread?”
He still does that same thing with us. Because of His grace, He speaks to us individually in terms of our culture, our history, our language, our current awareness.
I read that long ago, before archeology’s modern era, some theologians and Christian leaders thought that the words of the New Testament were originally written in a special divine version of Greek, a heavenly Greek language God created just for the New Testament. But as archeology advanced, as scraps of papyrus and engravings were unearthed, it was found that the words in the New Testament were common Greek, the same words used in average citizen’s grocery lists and personal reminders.
God is drawing us to Jesus, to Eternal Aliveness. He draws us with words we can understand. He uses familiar terms to explain things about aliveness that I’m only beginning to grasp. To the scientist He says, “It’s like electrons, neutron, and quarks.” To the plumber He says, “Your life is leaking right here.” To the vineyard owner He says, “I am the grapevine and you are the branches.” God knows billions of languages, and He draws every person in terms she or he can understand. Isn’t that amazing?
Life-challenge: Listen all day for the Spirit to whisper “It’s kind of like this.” Stop tonight and think about whether you heard those words or not.