Friday March 22, 2024
John 6:56
“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
We [have] spoken . . . of the heart which is in living fellowship with its Savior. As we did so, no doubt many a child of God sat sighing: “This does not apply to me. I am undoubtedly one of those spiritual corpses that does not need food.”
Therefore I would very much like to comfort you today with this word of God: “They that eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me.”
But is not this comfort dangerous, you say. There would be no difference, then, between a living and a dead faith. Unbelievers would read and pray with a slothful and unwilling heart, and believers likewise.
Indeed, my friend, there is a difference, a difference, moreover, which is very clear and distinct.
Unbelievers read and pray with an unwilling spirit, but will not acknowledge this fact either before themselves or God. Believers experience also the unwillingness of their old nature toward God and His Word. But they suffer under it, are fearful of it, and acknowledge it before God.
And in the instant that they do this they receive forgiveness for it; for the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses from all sin which is confessed unto Him.
Permit me to indicate what is meant by hungering and thirsting.
We think, as a rule, that to thirst after God is something unpleasant. But we are mistaken. When we experience this thirst, we feel how empty and distant from God we are, how unworthy we are of reading and praying and having fellowship with God in our daily life.
This is, of course, painful; but, at the same time, it is conducive to our spiritual health. It is thus that we learn to know that we have need of God and His mercy.
To all such souls the Gospel says: “Ho, every one that thirsts, come ye to the waters, and if ye have no money come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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