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Life
is His Word.
Jesus preached many sermons in
his lifetime. Some of those sermons are recorded
for us in the Gospels of the New Testament. In the
Gospel of John, chapter 6:53, Jesus spoke about, (get
ready for this) “eating his flesh and drinking his
blood”. Sounds like something out of a horror
movie, not something that the Son of God would be
preaching to his followers. But that is Jesus. He
used the symbols of eating and drinking to
illustrate the intimate relationship he was offering
to his followers. He is someone that has to be
consumed, internalized, deeply examined and then his
presence inside us will transform us into a person
who is able to participate in the life of God. Many
of the people who heard that sermon walked away
thinking Jesus was crazy. “How can we eat his flesh
or drink his blood?” they said.
After they left Jesus turned to
his most devoted followers, the 12 disciples and
asked, “Aren’t you going to leave as well?” They
answered wisely, as if God himself had given them
the answer, “Where can we go for you alone have the
words of eternal life,” (John 6:68). There is life in his words.
The life in his word can be
characterized in three fashions. First because
his words lead us to eternal life. You cannot go
wrong when you obey the teaching of the Bible. The
moral instruction given in the Bible is universal in
scope and eternal in significance. Jesus summarized
his teaching with two great commandments. The first
was to "love the Lord your God with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength," The second was like the first,
except that it called for us to "Love your neighbor as
yourself" (Mark 12:30,31).
Apostle Paul, who wrote the majority
of the New Testament, summarized the commandments
this way, “The only things that counts is faith expressing
itself in love.” (New Testament Epistle of
Galatians 5:6) He is saying that true faith in
Jesus will express itself in loving attitudes and
actions towards all other people.
Life,
continued
Secondly the words of Jesus
have life because what ever he instructs us to do he
also enables us to accomplish. So when you read the
paragraph above and you said to yourself, “I could
love most people but there are some I just cannot
love,” you have to realize that this is true when
you are loving only in response to the person and
not in response to what God is doing in your life.
With God’s instructions comes God’s power to
accomplish. His words are enabling for us. So when
he says, “Do not be drunk with wine within in
excess, but be filled with Spirit,” he is not
condemning us but empowering us to overcome the
addictions in our lives. There is life in his Word.
Finally the words of God are
like food for your spirit. When we come in faith to
God, we come like little spiritual children. The
Bible tells us to "crave pure spiritual milk"
of the Word (In the New Testament writing of I
Peter 2:2) The word of God is nourishing, enriching
our lives by enlarging our spiritual capacities.
Our spirits need growth and expansion and they can
only get it through the word of God.
Here is the significance of the
church that is committed to the Word of God. We at
CrossRoads are intentional in teaching and preaching
the Bible. The sermon series are
based simply on the Bible story and its significance
for our lives. You can study along weekly as
Pastor goes chapter by chapter through the Bible.
We believe that the Word of God will change your
life!
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