When Jesus is coming to the disciples walking on the water in John 6:20, the disciples think it is a ghost. He says to them, "It is I, do not be afraid."
Actually, in the Greek, it is translated, "I AM, do not be afraid".
You may remember that Moses was once asking God for God's name. God responds with, "I AM".
Moses was trying to know God's name to gains God's power for the difficult job he was given by God. It was felt that if you knew the name of someone you also had their power. God gets around Moses' question by simply saying "I AM!"
Now Jesus, over and over in the book of John, calls himself, "I AM". "I am, do not be afraid".
Jesus is God! He affirms this by suffering on the cross. God affirms Jesus as the great I AM by raising him from the dead.
Jesus can be trusted to keep his promises because he loves you and because he is God.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Scarcity and Abundance
In the 6th chapter of Mark Jesus is preaching and has a crowd of 5000 men. Other gospels say, "plus women and children. That is a lot of people. And, it creates a problem.
They are all far from home and there are no places to get food. The scarcity is making the disciples nervous. They bring the problem to Jesus and he asks what they can come up with? They ask around and come up with 5 loaves and 2 fish. Not much for all these people!
Do you ever feel that way? Like there is not enough to go around. Not enough resources, not enough time, not enough skills, not enough of you? Is there scarcity in your life?
If you are like me, there is a lot of scarcity in your life.
In the rest of the story, Jesus takes what they have, blesses it and breaks it and tells the disciples to start handing it out. That had to be nerve racking for the disciples!
When everyone had eaten, there was 12 full baskets of leftovers!
We always make it about us don't we? And, as long as we do, there will never be enough. But, when we make it about Jesus, then there is abundance. Because God is all about abundance!
The secret to all spirituality is to let go. Or, what usually happens is God breaks us, just like the bread. We are forced to let go. We learn to depend on him, (faith) and God provides the abundance in our lives.
They are all far from home and there are no places to get food. The scarcity is making the disciples nervous. They bring the problem to Jesus and he asks what they can come up with? They ask around and come up with 5 loaves and 2 fish. Not much for all these people!
Do you ever feel that way? Like there is not enough to go around. Not enough resources, not enough time, not enough skills, not enough of you? Is there scarcity in your life?
If you are like me, there is a lot of scarcity in your life.
In the rest of the story, Jesus takes what they have, blesses it and breaks it and tells the disciples to start handing it out. That had to be nerve racking for the disciples!
When everyone had eaten, there was 12 full baskets of leftovers!
We always make it about us don't we? And, as long as we do, there will never be enough. But, when we make it about Jesus, then there is abundance. Because God is all about abundance!
The secret to all spirituality is to let go. Or, what usually happens is God breaks us, just like the bread. We are forced to let go. We learn to depend on him, (faith) and God provides the abundance in our lives.
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