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John 6 - Devotion · The Five Minute Bible Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Five Minute Bible in our journey through the New
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  Testament. In each episode, we take just a
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  few minutes to focus on one chapter of the New Testament,
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  exploring the truths God is teaching us through His Word and
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  expanding our view of who He is. Before you listen, make sure
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  you've gone straight to the source, either by reading
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  today's chapter of the Bible yourself or listening to today's
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  read along episode in this podcast.
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  Feed if. You haven't done that yet.
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  Feel free to pause and do that now.
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  When you're ready, let's dive into God's Word together.
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  John chapter 6, Jesus shares some of his most difficult and
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  controversial teachings. Specifically, it's in this
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  chapter in verses 53 through 58 that Jesus tells those following
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  Him that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
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  drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.
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  He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I
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  will raise him up on the last day, For my flesh is true food,
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  and my blood is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks
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  my blood abides in me, and I in Him.
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  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the
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  Father, so he who eats me, He also will live because of me.
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  This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the
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  fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live
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  forever. It would be an understatement to
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  say this teaching was not well received.
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  Many of his followers said, quote, this is a difficult
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  statement, who can listen to it? And shortly thereafter, many of
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  those who were following Jesus left him.
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  Now Jesus was obviously not advocating for cannibalism.
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  He was not literally inviting his followers to eat his flesh
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  and drink his blood. Rather, in language echoed
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  during Jesus Last Supper with his disciples, and echoed every
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  time you and I partake in the Lord's Supper as we are gathered
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  with our church body. Jesus was saying that it would
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  be through faith in the crucified Savior, faith in the
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  broken body and spilled blood of Jesus, that men might be saved.
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  Jesus words were divisive, though they were words that
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  split his followers, words that did not add to his following,
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  but subtracted from it. Jesus is unfazed, though He's
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  made clear in this chapter that His true followers will follow
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  Him no matter the circumstances, that those whom the Father has
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  given him will endure to the end.
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  And in this very chapter, in the midst of the crowds abandoning
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  Jesus and even those who have followed him up to this point
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  leaving Him, we see that reality played out that Christ will hold
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  those who have truly believed him.
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  Listen to the exchange that takes place between Jesus and
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  Peter at the end of the chapter after these hard teachings
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  starting in verse 67. So Jesus said to the 12, you do
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  not want to go away also, do you?
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  Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
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  You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come
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  to know that you are the Holy One of God.
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  Peter lays it out there. The road is rough, but where
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  else can we go? If Jesus is the Son of God, and
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  He is, then all of our eggs are in his basket.
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  Our life is staked on His. Our future is in His hands.
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  And here is where it gets real for us.
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  When we submit to Jesus, it cannot be halfway.
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  It cannot be submission until the road gets hard.
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  It cannot be submission until we meet a teaching of Christ That's
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  difficult. If Jesus is God, then we must
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  submit to him fully. So when we meet those passages
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  in the Bible that are convicting and hard to obey, there's no
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  option to keep submitting to Jesus but to ignore his
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  commands. If we are his followers, then we
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  follow him no matter what. We submit to him as Lord,
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  whether obedience is easy or not.
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  So ask yourself, is there anything that would make you
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  walk away? Is there anything that would
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  cause you to stop pursuing, to stop following Jesus rooted out
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  and recognize like Peter, Lord, to whom shall we go?
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  You have words of eternal life.