One of the notable
features of John's Gospel is his retelling of the extended
conversations Jesus has with a wide range of individuals. And one truth that
emerges from such encounters is that while our circumstances in life may be
very different from one another, nevertheless our hearts - the controlling,
motivating centre of our lives - are so universally similar. In each conversation John records, Jesus as
the master personal-worker, wisely turns the chat around and exposes the
individual's deepest needs (reflecting our deepest needs) which are met - alone
- in Him.
For example, in John
3 we had Nicodemus, who for all his Biblical knowledge and religious expertise,
lacked the spiritual life by which he would be enabled to personally know the
God that he knew so much about: so, having no 'life', he needed a new life; he
needed to be born again, or born 'from above' - a new, spiritual life only God
can give. Nicodemus: 'religion without life'.
Now in John 4 we
meet a 'shady lady' shunned by the rest of her village community because of her
unquenchable thirsts in life. When Jesus
goes out of His way to meet her (v4) and begins to talk about "a water"
that He alone can give she thinks she won't have to visit the well every day.
But Jesus was exposing the thirsty lusts and God-sized holes in her heart that
only Jesus can satisfy (v14). In all her
relationships she had been looking for the true love her heart craved, but in
all the wrong places. She had been giving her heart to false gods (idols) -
that promised her joy and love, only to disappoint her and leave her
broken-hearted. That's perhaps why Jesus
had to instruct her about true 'worship' (v23-24) that she might give her heart to the One who truly loved her, who truly cared. The woman of Samaria: 'passion without love'.
In John 5 we read of
an anonymous invalid - but known to Jesus - who was 'helpless and without
hope'. For years, decades even, he had
sat by the edge of a Jerusalem 'magic pool' with the misguided, superstitious
belief that the first one into the pool after the water was stirred (v7 - and
also the legend recorded in v3) would be cured.
But only Jesus could change his life.
Throughout John 6
the dominant theme is hunger, both physical and spiritual. The crowds following Jesus have gone without
food, so Jesus uses the occasion to test and train the disciples important
truths about faith (v6,29) and His ability to meet our deepest needs (v32-33).
In the first of the famous "I am's" in John's Gospel (v35), Jesus
declares He is the "Bread of Life" to which the wilderness Manna (v
57-58) and your everyday Sunblest loaf are merely signs.
The truth is our
exposed hearts reveal we are all without true life (ch 3), without true love
(ch 4), without true help (ch 5), without true sustenance and satisfaction (ch
6), unless and until we come in faith to Jesus.
As St Augustine prayed: Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.
You may remember
that we highlighted that John's Gospel helps us more fully understand what real
faith is, what it means to truly believe in Him. To this point, in every chapter, we read of
people believing in Christ. Wonderful! Praise God! However,
chapter 6 closes with a disturbing concern:
for we learn that not all 'disciples' of Jesus who profess to
"believe" in Jesus do truly "believe" in Jesus
(v63-64, 66). Eventually their false faith is revealed and they turn back from following Him. So, John is saying, bewarned: there is a type
of faith which is a false faith or a pseudo-faith, that looks like the real
thing, but which is not 'faith', Gospel faith, saving faith. We need to ensure our faith in Him is true. So keep reading…
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