Week 15: Filling up on Bread

Day:  104          Verses Memorized:  255          Working On:  John 6:25-59

The John Squad
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My Progress:
I had gotten a little stuck there for a couple weeks and the frustration was building.  However, I really feel like I'm back on track and have a new found excitement and motivation lately.  I was able to do 26 verses this week and I'm feeling good.  My biggest discouragement is how much of the previous chapters I'm forgetting.  But I will NOT let that get to me.  My plan is to finish Chapter 6, then take a couple weeks for review.  I think I have several people praying for me and that has to be the reason that my frustration was kept at bay and I am feeling more positive and motivated this week.

Some Thoughts:
So every once in a while, I'll be cooking along memorizing my verses and all of a sudden, one will jump off the page and smack me in the face.  That hadn't happened in a while and I was starting to get concerned that this whole project was becoming more academic than spiritual.  But this week, it happened twice, and I can't tell you how happy I am to hear from the Lord again.

John 6:33  "For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."  This is one of those verses that's easy to skim through with a 'yeah, yeah' attitude.  But this time, it really hit me hard.  Jesus comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.  To the world!  I have given birth 4 times and let me tell you, it's quite an ordeal.  Thinking that Jesus came down from heaven and gives not only physical life, but spiritual life to the entire world blows my mind.

John 6:51  "This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."  This one really caught me off guard.  I was in my most-focused memorizing position, sitting with both hands cupped on my forehead and leaning over the pages.  I was saying each verse over, and over, and over.  I got to this verse and KaBam-O!  My mind came to a complete halt.  It was like I ran a hundred miles an hour into a brick wall.  Can you imagine Jesus standing there talking to these unbelieving people, many of them having the utmost contempt for Him in their hearts?  Can you imagine Him physically in your midst, close enough that you could reach out and touch his body?  To see Him standing there and say, "I will give my flesh for the life of the world." is just incomprehensible.  He gave His flesh.  He gave us everything.  And the life He is talking about is something far better and greater than we are even able to imagine.  Who can understand that?! 

The most profound and self-sacrificing statement that was made at my house this week was, "I'll let you have some of my ice cream."  And that statement was rewarded with a 10 minute praising session on how wonderful and giving it was to make such a sacrifice. 

There is just so much in this passage when you slow down and meditate on it verse by verse.  I love it when Jesus says "I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."  I don't know how anyone can read the Scriptures and feel anything else other than gratitude and unworthiness.  And I think it's amazing that just when I think Jesus is the most awesome He can be, I learn something new and He is even more awesome to me than before.  It's overwhelming.

I would encourage you to look over this passage sometime.  Meditate on what it means for Jesus to be bread.  Think about how hunger is one of the most basic needs of life.  Remember how it feels to be starving hungry and then how it feels to eat a piece of bread.  Bread from heaven that gives life to the world.  Amazing.