Terry Storch

Writing about life, leadership, faith, and anything else I find interesting.

John 6:25-70 - Understand or Accept

 

John 6:25-70 - Understand or Accept

Jesus, the Bread of Life. This sounds pretty inspiring and good. So many of these one-liners, and Christianese that can get thrown that we can completely miss the radical nature of Jesus himself. Take a moment and flip to John 6:25 and read the chapter. Jesus sharing that He is the Bread of Life was not some easy and light-hearted topic and discussion. On the surface, It seemed like Jesus was talking about Cannibalism. Can you imagine this scenario, how would you process this and handle this? Many of His disciples walked away.

“On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”” - ‭‭John‬ ‭6:60‬ ‭NIV‬‬

As I sit here and just process this, I have so many thoughts running through my mind. First, following Jesus and genuinely being a disciple of His is not necessarily the easy path. Thinking about those decisions as a college student, as a rising star in business, many of the decisions needing to be made to follow Jesus won't be the popular or easy call. It seems like we can often oversimplify this and make following Jesus seem easy. 

My mind also takes me to a place of turning our backs on Jesus, and walking away from him like many of his disciples did as a permanent decision. 

“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” - ‭‭John‬ ‭6:66‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I am not sure why my mind reads this and thinks about these disciples as permanently walking away from Jesus. The text doesn't say that, but I think about it like that. For me personally, I have turned my back on Jesus a lot...thankfully, I have repented, and turned back towards Him just as much. 

The Bread of Life interaction was not some light-hearted, easy discussion between Jesus and his followers. It took the disciples to a place where they needed faith and trust in Jesus. They needed to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear what Jesus was really saying. It was not Cannibalism; it was a different type of death and dying. But here is the interesting plot twist, and I think this is something we can relate with.  Researching this lead me to this.

“When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”” - ‭‭John‬ ‭6:60‬ ‭ESV‬‬

This is a hard saying: This refers to that which is hard to accept, not to what is hard to understand. No doubt, these disciples (disciples in the broad sense, not the narrower sense) found Jesus’ words somewhat mysterious, but it was the parts they did understand that were really disturbing.

“It is little wonder that the disciples found the discourse of Jesus hard. The Greek word is skleros, which means not hard to understand; but hard to accept.” (Barclay)

What I believe we can relate to is the knowing and doing part. Not hard to understand but hard to accept. As we walk into our day, and week may we take a real inventory on the elements we must accept. Can we take inventory on where our true value comes from, and accept the truth. Let us wrestle a bit with understanding and accepting. What is it that we are facing today that we understand, but we are not accepting. May that be the place that we surrender to Jesus today. 

other writing
John 20 - The Gospel

John 20 - The Gospel

The Gospel, the Good News! Jesus, Son of God, was born of Mary, lived as the Son of Man, died, and rose to life to rescue the world and bring about a new life. The central message of the gospel. Jesus, the centerpiece! John 19 & 20 cover the brutal death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

In this scene, I can not imagine how the disciples felt. John describes them as overjoyed...but those words just fall short of what I can imagine this moment was like.

John 19 - The Magnitude of the Cross

John 19 - The Magnitude of the Cross

The day of Jesus' crucifixion fulfilled 28 Old Testament prophecies. Scripture was fulfilled! Beyond that, trying to wrap my mind around what happened this day, on the cross, and fully grabbing the magnitude of the cross is mind-boggling.

Sure, we can dumb this down or simplify it to a place where I just don’t believe it is anywhere near accurate. We can get into penal substitution and argue over was God full of love or was God full of wrath and hate that he killed his son. To me, John 3:16 is pretty clear on the love part.

John 18 - Jesus levels an army

John 18 - Jesus levels an army

In John 18, we come to the great betrayal. Judas came with the soldiers, officials, and chief priest and Pharisees. We know the scene. But this morning, I saw something I don’t remember reading and surly don’t remember learning about.

“So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?” “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.” - ‭‭John‬ ‭18:3-6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

John 17 - The Lords Prayer

John 17 - The Lords Prayer

John 17 is Jesus looking heavenward and praying to God the Father. So much beauty and mystery in this prayer. One thing that jumps out to me is that Jesus, fully God, and fully man prayed. Jesus is God fully. Why did he need to pray, He was One with the Father, He was God...and yet he prayed. This is so powerful;

“And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” - ‭‭John‬ ‭17:5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

John 16 - What does it take to believe?

John 16 - What does it take to believe?

By the end of John 16, Jesus had done countless miracles, preached some amazing sermons, transformed so many lives, and developed a close and personal relationship with his disciples. So, when reading these verses, I am just utterly confused on so many levels.

“I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.” “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied.” - ‭‭John‬ ‭16:28-31‬ ‭NIV‬‬

John 16 - Undervaluing God in Spirit

John 16 - Undervaluing God in Spirit

Jesus’ time on earth is quickly coming to a close, and he finishes up his last sermon or teaching to his disciples as they walk to Gethsemane. This final teaching was a heavy one that no doubt left his disciples with a heavy heart. Jesus said it this way;

“...None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things.” - ‭‭John‬ ‭16:5-6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus goes on to say;

John 15 - Constant Growth

John 15 - Constant Growth

We were built for growth, constant growth. From birth, all the way until our death, we were designed by God for constant growth. The problem is, we often can find ourselves stuck in a belief, a phase, or a part of life where we stop growing.

One of the most brilliant investors embodies this understanding. Charlie Munger, at 96 years old, is still learning and growing as a person. I love this quote:

“Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.”
- Charlie Munger

John 14 - The Gift of Peace

John 14 - The Gift of Peace

John 14 opens with Jesus, saying, Don’t let your hearts be troubled. And the chapter closed down with Jesus saying Don’t be troubled or afraid.

A message that needs to resonate with our spirit and our inner self. This was such a good reminder, reading through John 14 over and over. This passage lifted off the screen.

“But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart…

John 14 - Troubled Hearts

John 14 - Troubled Hearts

The world today seems so volatile and chaotic. Everywhere you look, whatever we read and see on TV just seems to be troubling. Last night, I noticed my lovely wife Tweeted this;

“I can’t be the only one who watches the news and is simply embarrassed right now, right? (Dear Jesus, we tap out. Come on back.)”

I find this first humorous, but then I also find it sad. It’s true, watching the news as a Christ-follower is pretty embarrassing. In John 14, we see Jesus…

John 13 - Unselfish Concern

John 13 - Unselfish Concern

Summarizing John, chapter 13, looks like this. The Lords Supper takes place. Jesus washes the disciple's feet. Jesus calls out Judas, and Satan enters him. Night comes, Judas leaves, and Jesus says he must go, and where I am going, you can not come. To cap it all off, Jesus also calls out Simon Peter and tells him that he will deny and completely disown Jesus three times. Whoa, a really full chapter, and historical day.

Nestled in the wrap up of the day is the parting message Jesus leaves his disciples, a message Jesus is sharing with us right now.

 
thoughtsTerry Storch