Some people are more afraid of a drop in attendance than a false teaching or worldliness!
body, when we do not realize and appreciate and appropriate the provision God has made for us in Christ; when we have no regard for it; when we go about the memorial of His death carelessly; when we make of the memorial a ceremony with no apprehension o f the truth behind the symbols. What does it mean to feed on Christ? Our Lord made it clear that it was His words that were spirit and life. We feed on the Living Word as we read and inwardly digest the written Word. If we abide in Him and His words abide in us, we shall have what we ask (John 15 :7 ); if we love Him, we will keep His words (John 14:23). I f we are ashamed of Him AND HIS WORDS, He will be ashamed of us one day (Mark 8:38). Some of us say we are not ashamed of Him but we are ashamed of some things He said for we are not willing to do them. To feed on the Living Word is more than read ing the Bible. It is not enough to check a report card with the comfortable satisfaction of having read an allotted number of chapters. It is more than memorizing the Scriptures. Knowing the Bible by memory is not knowing it “by heart.” It is not the Word hidden in the head but the Word hidden in the heart that keeps us from sin. We can have a head full of Scripture and a heart full of sin. We may not remember all that we read any more than we remember what we had for dinner a month ago but if we appropriated what we read, we are living on the strength o f it. Feeding on the Word is more than studying the Bible. Our Lord said, “ Ye search the Scrip tures . . . and ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” The Pharisees were Scripture students but they did not know the Living Bread. A man might work in a bread shop, study bread, analyze bread, take bread apart and put it back together . . . and starve to death if he didn’t eat. God’s Word is His love letter to us. Who ever heard of anyone’s analyzing a love letter, putting all the nouns in one row, all the verbs in another, study ing the syntax and missing the sentiment? We must indeed read the Word, memorize the Word, study the Word but beyond all that, we must move from appreciation to appropriation and assimilate by faith the truth of the Word. Looking at the cake through the delicatessen window is appreciation. Eating the cake is appropriation. Some of us are only Bible window-shoppers. There must be the conscious appropriation of the Living Christ for every need, moment by moment. God has provided everything in Christ. He who spared
not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all has with Him freely given us all things. He is able to make all grace abound toward us so that we, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. His grace is sufficient for us. All things are ours. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. To us to live is Christ and the life we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God. We assent to the truth of all this but we must get it out of opinion into experience. Our Lord said, concerning the hungry multitude, “ They need not depart, Give ye them to eat.” We never need to leave Jesus for anything. God has made no prom ises in the Scriptures to the saints that He will not fulfill in His Son by the Spirit. There will always be enough of everything we need to do all God wants us to do as long as He wants us to do it. It is not enough to read, study and memorize the promises; we must believe them and live as though they were true and prove that they are true. A dying saint who rejoiced in God’s promises was asked, “ But maybe you do not have the right translation of some of those verses.” “Man,” she replied, “ I’ve translated some of those promises myself!” We need to translate them into our own experience. There is a popular interest in Jesus today just as with this crowd long ago. But too many are after the wrong kind of bread. Many would be for crowning Him today if He came performing miracles. But tell them that He must die to offer us His flesh and blood and they will go away com plaining of a “ gory Gospel” and a “ slaughter-house religion.” Even His disciples thin out when it comes to making Him our meat and drink. Even the most faithful have no reason for pride. Our Lord said to the few who remained with Him on this occasion, “Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil?” Judas betrayed Him, Peter denied Him and they all forsook Him and fled! But our Lord stands today as then and will not change His message to hold the crowd. He is as unpopular and His message as unacceptable today as ever. Tell the multitude that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood or they have no life and the crowd will depart and Sunday-morning disciples will disappear. But a few of us are resolved to remain. To whom shall we go? It is Christ or else! He has the words of eternal life; they ger minate and sprout when they are planted. There may be a Judas among us and a Simon Peter may deny Him but we believe and are sure that He is that Christ, the Son of the Living God. DU
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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