What is Eternal LIfe?

In John 6:24 the crowd that Jesus has fed realizes that He and His disciples are not there and they go seeking Him.

The fact that the people were seeking Jesus seems like a really great thing. The people wanted Jesus.

But listen to Jesus’ words in John 6:26, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

Jesus knew that the people were seeking Him because He had fed them. He had met their physical needs and that was their priority.

In John 6:27 Jesus says, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal.”

Jesus doesn’t want us to make the physical needs and wants of our lives the priority. We are to make eternal things the priority of our lives. The only thing that is by its nature eternal is God. Jesus is saying “Make Me the priority of your life.”

When God showed this to me, He then caused me to ask a question. The question He put in my mind was - What is my priority in life?

Jesus says in John 6:35 and 6:48 that He is the Bread of Life.    
Jesus says in John 6:41 that He is the bread that came down from heaven.

Bread for the time that Jesus physically was here on the earth was the staple of life. It was what primarily the people had to eat.

Jesus is saying that He and He alone has to be our priority.

When Jesus says that He is the Bread of Life, He means that He is:

The Everlasting Life

Jesus says that anyone who comes to Him will not hunger and whoever believes in Him will never thirst.

The life Jesus gives is not temporary; it is eternal.

Jesus uses the word Zoë for life. It means an eternal life that is real and genuine, a life that is active and vigorous, a life that is absolutely full.

Jesus gives life that is not just existing or surviving, but is really living.

John 3:14-15
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus, as the Bread of Life, is eternal life.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about seeking Jesus for eternal life.

The Satisfying Life

I love bread. I could make a meal of bread. Some people struggle with sweets, but I struggle with bread. So I can easily see Jesus as the Bread of Life being totally satisfying.

The key to letting Jesus totally satisfy us is to have the same desires for our lives that Jesus has for our lives.

We have made satisfaction about:
Wealth
Success
Position
Comfort
Safety
My Needs Being Met

Jesus makes satisfaction about a relationship with the Father through Him.

In John 17:3 Jesus says that eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ who He sent.

I see in the theology of a huge segment of the American church that Jesus is here to fulfill the American Dream so that we as Christians in America will not have to endure any discomfort. Let’s get real. Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you and I could be comfortable, healthy and wealthy.

Jesus died on the cross to save us from the penalty, power, and presence of sin.
Jesus died on the cross to change us from enemies of God to children of God.
Jesus died on the cross to recreate the image of God that humans were created with in the beginning.

It is an abomination to reduce what Jesus did on the cross to simply making me happy and comfortable.

It is not about having your best life now or becoming a better you. It is about yielding your life to Jesus, repenting of anything that is a priority other than Him, and surrendering all you are to Him as the sole authority in your life and the One who satisfies you completely.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about looking to Jesus for your satisfaction and nothing else.

The Resurrection Life

Jesus as the Bread of Life is the resurrected life.

In John 11 when Jesus has a conversation with Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, He tells her that He is the Resurrection and the Life. He says that whoever believes in Him, though that person dies, yet that person will live.

Paul in Romans 8 tells us that nothing can separate us form God’s love, not even death.

Jesus promises that if we surrender our lives to Him, not only will we live for eternity, one day our bodies will be resurrected and we will live in that eternity with a body that does not get sick or hurt or wear out. I will tell you that the older I get and the more my body hurts, the more that promise becomes awesome.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about believing the promise that, just as Jesus rose from the dead, we as His followers will be resurrected.

The Indwelling Life

John 6:51
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.

Jesus caused quite a stir among the Jews when He said that the bread He was giving was His own flesh.

Jesus didn’t stop there. In John 6:53-57 Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on Me, he also will live because of Me.”

Jesus shocks the people by saying that to experience real life, Zoë, they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood.

Jesus is not just referring to Communion here, where we symbolically eat the bread, His body, and drink the wine, His blood. But He is saying “I have to live in you for you to have real life.”

I remember vividly at eighteen years of age an older Christian sharing with me Colossians 1:27. It says “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Well, it was a mystery to me that Jesus had come and taken up residence in my life.

I thought being saved meant you received forgiveness for your sins, the promise of eternal life in heaven, but you had to work as hard as you could to obey God.

No!

Jesus by the Holy Spirit comes and lives in you. He works from the inside out. He empowers and enables you from the inside to obey and do His will.

Jesus is telling the people in John 6, and you and me, it is not about following rules, rituals, or traditions. It is about an inmate love relationship with the Father through Jesus living in and through you.

Jesus doesn’t want us to try harder, He wants us to surrender. I surrender to the rule of God through Jesus living in me.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about having Jesus living in you so it is not you who is living but Jesus living His righteous and holy life in and through you.

We are living in an exciting time. It is a time of great spiritual darkness in our nation. But when it is darkest is when the Light of Jesus can most brightly shine in our lives.

Let Jesus be your Everlasting Life.
Let Jesus be you Satisfying Life.
Let Jesus be your Resurrected Life.
Let Jesus be you Indwelling Life.
LET JESUS BE YOUR LIFE!

With Jesus as My Life Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
                                              Joe