The resources God has given us to live a thriving life are His Word, Spirit, and People.
Read God’s Word:
Matthew 10; 14, Mark 6:7-56, Luke 9:1-17, John 6
Act 3: God’s New Covenant People
Scene 2: Christ’s Ministry; God’s True King Manifests His Kingdom
Background Information: Matthew 10; 14, Mark 6:7-56, Luke 9:1-17, John 6
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” This quote from Augustine highlights the fact that our physical needs and desires can blind us to our eternal need. Our restless hearts go searching for peace, satisfaction, and meaning in wrong places. The masses were drawn to the truth that they heard Jesus proclaim, but then they followed him mostly for free food. They understandably wanted Jesus to heal them of their physical affliction, and it is not surprising that hungry people were drawn to someone who could provide food. The problem is not in physical desires; the problem is in disordered desires. When the physical takes complete priority over the eternal, our hearts are disordered. God brings order, sin brings disorder. God spoke over the chaos in Genesis, and order appeared. Jesus enters a human heart, and order begins to reign there. Ordered desires put fear of God over fear of men. They put relationship with God in a place of priority over what God provides. They put hunger for the Bread of Life over physical desires. Yes, we need bread to live physically, this much is obvious to us. What is not always obvious is that we need more than physical bread because we are more than physical beings. When we misinterpret the longing in our hearts, we do what Jeremiah warned against: we abandon the fountain of living water and dig our own wells to quench our heart thirst. The problem is that these wells are broken and dry. These wells leave us forever thirsty. At the hard words of Jesus, his followers began to dwindle in size. He was not trying to draw crowds; he was out to change the world. When Jesus looked at Peter and asked if he was going to leave as well, Peter showed that he had some understanding of his true need. “Where will we go?” He asked. “You have the words of eternal life.” Peter would struggle to keep this perspective in the days to come, because even for the follower of Christ, our hearts can become restless if we allow them to drift away from him. Augustine’s quote doesn’t just apply to becoming a follower of Christ and finding heart rest for the first time. It applies to all of us, every day. Our hearts are continually restless. We must repeatedly find our rest in Jesus.
Pray:
Praise God for…
Thank God for…
Confess your sins to God
Pray for those in your life who are lost. Ask God to reveal the reality of the gospel to them and pray that they would come to faith in Jesus.
Ask God for… (what else concerns you?)
Reflect:
Write down one passage of scripture that stood out to you today.
Write down why this passage stood out to you.
Engage Community:
Text or call someone now and tell them…
– What you are praying for.
– What stood out from God’s word today.