WILL YOU ALSO GO AWAY

WILL YOU ALSO GO AWAY

One of the highlights of John 6:1-13 tells us how Jesus had taught his followers and performed miracles for three days and called his apostles to give his followers something to eat. Jesus is always touched by our feelings but only after he had fed their spirit with spiritual food. 

When Jesus was giving spiritual food, Mary was feeding from it but Martha was busy with physical food. The essence of coming to Christ is not for material things(physical food) but for spiritual food. The followers of Jesus asked him how he got there only because they sought for him for physical food/blessings than the spiritual things “John 6:25-26 “. Jesus told them in verse 59-61 that he is the living bread, on hearing this teaching they called it a hard teaching. 

These are the reasons why people follow and fall by the way side, the inability to bear hard things. In verse 61, Jesus asked them if his words offends them, there are things Jesus said that people did not understand. And from that moment In verse 66-69, many of Jesus’s disciples departed. They had challenges and only wanted Jesus to give them material things and make the challenges go away but heard the so called hard teaching and decides to leave, they did not work with Jesus anymore There are many things people need and when these physical needs do not come early, how many will keep following Jesus. Jesus asked the “Twelve” ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’. 

Though the twelve had seen several miracles and wonders performed by Jesus, yet Jesus still asked them. Everybody is given the option either to continue or to go away. Someone would have come very far and still go away. People still go away even after seeing miracles. There is always that point where a man chooses to follow Jesus or go away. People choose how much longer they want to follow Jesus.  1 Timothy 4”1-2 “The spirit clearly says that in latter times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons”. The first time deceiving spirits was known to man was in the time of Eve where she was deceived to eat the forbidden fruit. In this passage of 1 Timothy 4:1-2 Paul was talking to a pastor, Timothy, so the message of deceiving spirits was already taught long ago. Jesus was not surprised by the leaving of the disciples. In John 2:23-25 he performed signs and wonders and they believed in his name, yet it is written that he knew what was in each person, so he was not surprised in John 6 when they departed. Jesus was presented with the option to desert God in the privacy of his 40 days fasting and prayer. Devil gave him an option of denouncing God but he did not take it. We always ask of material things, what of the grace for eternal life. Those days when Christianity was much better, we ask for grace to make eternal life, what about now.

To stay following Jesus is a fight. Bible says in 1 Timothy 6:12 “fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life”. In Jude 3-4, Jude the brother of Jesus one of the other sons of Mary, was compelled to urge the Christians to contend for the faith entrusted to God’s holy people because the faith is under attack and ungodly people have secretly slipped in among them as written long ago. They deny Jesus Christ as our Sovereign Lord.

How to stay in faith

Jude verse 20-21 

1.    Build up yourselves in most holy things 
2.    Grow in grace and in the things of God 
3.  Pray in the holy ghost, speak in tongues and pray with the full consciousness of the   holy spirit. 
4.  See Jesus Christ not just as the way but as the only way.

 Re-dedicate your life to Jesus Christ today, tell him you will not go away because of eternal life.

 PRAYER: Lord Jesus Christ, Have mercy on me a miserable sinner. Forgive me all, my sins and help me to stand in faith and not leave the faith in the face of hardship. Thank you lord for answered prayers in Jesus name i prayer. Amen

Minister: Samuel Oguta