What fills you?

John 6:25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" 26 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.

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Jesus had performed the miraculous 'feeding of the five thousand' just the day before.  Overnight, the disciples had rowed across the Sea of Galilee and Jesus had walked across the water to join them.  The crowd apparently decided to also cross the water.  They had seen the disciples get into the boat without Jesus and they wanted to track Him down.  I think they were beginning to see Jesus as some kind of living producer of manna, as God had provided daily food for the Israelites in the Wilderness.  They were following their bellies.

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No doubt the need for daily food is one of our basic drives.  Inescapably, we must eat or we perish.  It's interesting to consider the reaction of the people to the miracle they'd just experienced.  Instead of responding with worship because they had been in the presence of God, they worshiped their appetites.  Amazingly, most of them could not see past the food to be awed and humbled by the Provider.

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We face a similar choice.  Daily our needs are met, even in this time of 'virus crisis'.  If our focus is constantly on getting the next meal or finding the paper products we need, without realizing and thanking the One who meets those needs, we won't see past the physical and material to view the One who satisfies those essentials with the greater essential...eternal life.

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Truly they must have known that they had been in the presence of God, when the few fish and loaves were multiplied.  That miracle should have caused them to fall before the Lord in awe and humility, as they had been served by the hands that fashioned all of Creation.  How blind we can be to the constant presence of our Maker and Provider.  How great is our need to be filled with Him!

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blessings,

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."