What is your meat?

A Chronological Harmony of the Gospels Leading to Easter  2/22/2013
(Click on link below for readings.) 

John 3:23-36; John 4; Mark 6:1-6; Luke 4:16-24

Jesus said to them, "My meat is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work."

John 4:34

     Okay, today's title may be a bit strange for a devotional, but today is Friday in the midst of Lent. Some people won’t be eating beef today and instead have a fish sandwich. Some people in the world today are thinking their getting black angus, but in reality, they may be getting Black Beauty. But in today’s devotional, Jesus doesn’t eat anything at all because He is so wrapped up in telling a woman, a Samaritan woman, about God.

      It makes me wonder, what gives us the nourishment for our soul? Are we thinking we are eating meat, while Satan is really substituting our food with junk? Jesus didn’t even notice it was passed His mealtime because He busy doing what the Father wanted Him to do.

     Earlier in John 3, John the Baptist was confronted with the fact that Jesus was getting more popular than he was. That didn’t bother John. His meat – John’s sustenance – was no more about who was baptizing the most people than it would be if a best man of a wedding were to be jealous because the groom (or the bride) was getting more attention. John the Baptist said:

“29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John Chapter 3

      Isn’t the point of a wedding the bride and groom? John knew it wasn't about him.

      Jesus then goes to His home town. After leaving the “despised” Samaritans, who came out en masse to see the man who told the woman “everything she had ever done”, His own people were offended by him.

     On the way, Jesus heals a nobleman’s son a day’s journey away, but because of their disbelief, His own hometown people (spoiler alert for tomorrow’s reading) try to throw Jesus off a cliff! They could not get accept the fact that Joseph and Mary's boy was now a prophet, let alone the Messiah, and could not give Him the honor afforded to Him elsewhere. Pity, because it was their loss. 

 

     So what is your meat? Are you willing to lose the real food for that which is merely carnal? Here’s what Jesus’ mandate was from today’s reading.

 

18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;  19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

Luke Chapter 4

 

     Whether you eat a hamburger or catfish today, make sure your real food is what Jesus’ was. Let us get the focus off of us and onto Christ. Let us go and do likewise.

Pray: I confess today, Jesus, that I need to abstain from spiritual junk food and feast on the food You ate. I must decrease, as You increase. Let me preach, anoint me to heal broken hearts, give me the power to liberate those held captivated to sin, suffering and all the other sorrows of this world. Give me the privilege to lead those who are spiritually blind to the glorious vision of salvation. In Your name I pray, Amen.