Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“From the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I”
– Psalm 61:2

God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit. Our Triune God is the Rock higher than we! He is the Rock that pours out living water in a desert. He is the Rock that follows His people and provides for their needs (1 Corinthians 10:4). Whenever your heart grows faint, weary, overwhelmed, or afraid, cry out to God and let Him lead you to Himself. When you are at the end of yourself, stop trying to rely on yourself! Call out to the Lord Jesus. Ask Him to lead you to the Rock higher than yourself. He will!

God is the one enduring, unbreakable, unshakable rock. Run to Him for shelter and protection. Build your life on Him as your solid foundation. When everything else in your life is dissolving, the Rock can be trusted. Cry out to Him, pray to Him, surrender yourself to Him. Turn from any sins and confess them to the Father in the name of the Son. Let go of anything and everything that holds you back from the Rock.

Stop standing on yourself, your ambitions, your plans, your talents, and your resources. #FollowJesus up to the Rock that’s infinitely higher than yourself.

“I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” – John 8:24

Jesus isn’t beating around the bush!!! He’s profoundly concerned that we understand that the default destination of every human being on earth is eternal separation from God in Hell. That’s what it means to die in our sins. Why is this true? Because everyone has sinned and sin is rebellion against God’s holy and rightful rule over the universe and their lives. Condemnation isn’t God’s special judgment on people – it’s every person’s default reality from birth. God is holy and we aren’t. Rebellion against God, which we’ve all participated in, warrants condemnation to the place that is utterly and eternally apart from God. This isn’t unfair, as some people foolishly claim. It’s absolutely, perfectly, terribly fair.

People need to break out of their foolish earthly mindset and actually hear what Jesus is saying. Everyone, no matter how nice they seem, is headed to an eternity apart from God by default. Unless they believe in Him, they will die in their sins. Unless you believe in Him, you will die in your sins. Jesus came to rescue people from this path we’ve willingly embraced, restoring us to a relationship with our Creator. And He made it easy – we just need to believe in Jesus – crucified and resurrected – and make Him Lord of our lives.

Jesus did all the work necessary to save us – we can’t and don’t add anything to what He accomplished on the cross. We just need to believe. So does every person you will encounter today. Do they? Will you help them to believe? #FollowJesus

“After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” – John 6:66

Following Jesus is hard for us. You might argue that Jesus made salvation easy – after all, we just need to believe in Him to receive God’s grace. That’s wonderfully, gloriously true. However, it’s also very difficult for people to accept because it means we can’t possibly justify ourselves. God’s grace requires us to stop trying to save ourselves, confront and admit our wretched sinfulness, and embrace God’s one and only path to life. We hate that!

Following Jesus is also hard because after we’ve embraced His grace, He calls us to deny ourselves, take up our personal cross of sacrifice daily, and obey His commands and example. Jesus invites and commands us to a blessed, Spirit-filled life of self-denial. Jesus invites and commands us to believe and do things that will seem strange and be unpopular with the majority of people around us. His invitation is amazing but, once again, we naturally hate that! We far prefer self-centeredness, indulgence, and social acceptance to self-denial, sacrifice, and social rejection. And so, many who initially are enthusiastic about the person and good news of Jesus Christ won’t really embrace Him as their Lord because of what He expects.

Jesus is used to that, as we see in the verse. Though He desires for everyone to follow Him, He absolutely prefers a handful of true followers to a large crowd of fans. He actively winnows out His true followers from His casual fans in this story and is glad to have done so. Jesus isn’t concerned about the number of people sitting in a church building or calling themselves Christian. He cares about the number of disciples who are truly following Him, carrying their cross along the narrow path of faith. Of course, He gives every disciple the strength to carry their cross, He walks with them, and He fills them with joy as we do. But each believer must still walk with Him rather than his or her own path.

What about you? Are you truly walking with Jesus? If not, will you turn and #FollowJesus?

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” – John 6:37

Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Are you “in Christ”? Then rejoice at this word from Jesus that He will never cast you out! Those who are raised to new spiritual life by God’s grace through faith in His Son belong to Jesus forever. You belong to Jesus and He’ll never get sick or tired of you!!!

If you belong to Christ, He won’t give up on you when you struggle. He won’t toss you aside when you mess up and then return, asking His forgiveness yet again. He won’t stop loving you ever. You’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit as God’s property, united with Jesus, and adopted by God as His child. NOTHING can ever undo that!

Satan may well attack you, but he doesn’t have the power to tear you out of Jesus’ hand. You may stumble and fall, but for those truly in Christ, you will eventually get up again, and when you do, God will forgive and Jesus will say, “I never let you go.” You may struggle with doubts but Jesus won’t give up on you. You may be unlovable but Jesus will love you anyway. In your pride, foolishness, or wickedness you may miss out on plenty of blessings and experience God’s discipline for long periods of time, but Jesus won’t say in the end, “I never knew you”.

So, rejoice if you’re in Christ. You are truly in Him for all eternity. Your salvation is secure. Now, live to please Him, enjoy your fellowship with Him, and become more and more like Him. #FollowJesus

“So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.” – John 6:13

This is an extraordinary little detail that’s emphasized in the accounts of a truly remarkable miracle. Jesus began with five small barley loaves – the modest provisions a poor boy had brought for himself. Using that, Jesus created bread in the wilderness to feed thousands and thousands of Jews in a vivid re-enactment of God’s miraculous provision for Israel in the wilderness. After everyone had eaten their fill – not a modest snack but a satisfying meal – then His disciples gathered enough leftovers to fill 12 baskets!

Five small loaves of the kind of bread eaten by the poor became a feast for thousands. This reminds us that our human thinking about what can and can’t be accomplished by God is completely wrong! God isn’t limited by the resources we think we can put together for Him. God owns everything and can create from nothing to accomplish His purpose. Don’t limit your faith to what you can reason out, plan out, or expect to collect. Whatever God is calling His people to do, He will provide the resources.

After the feast, there were more leftovers than there had originally been bread. This is a beautiful reminder that what Jesus does for us, He does in glorious abundance! His grace, His love, His mercy, and His sacrifice – He delights to give those to us in overflowing abundance!

The number of baskets of leftovers isn’t an accident. Twelve is the number of tribes of Israel, the number of Apostles, the number of completeness throughout the Bible. This reminds us that what Jesus does for us, He does for all. His sacrifice, His resurrection, and new life in Him is made available to all and there is grace enough for everyone who will embrace it.

This story isn’t about leftovers because Jesus isn’t a God of scraps and leftovers. Nonetheless, in the leftovers we learn a great deal about the greatness, power, and provision of Jesus Christ for us, our sins, our lives, and the world! #FollowJesus