Bible Study: Acts 8, 26 to 40 and John
6, 44 to 51.
As Jesus said in our Gospel passage this morning: “Truly, truly,
I say to you, he who believes in me has eternal life.” To believe in Jesus is
to live a different type of life. When you are close to Jesus and strive each
day to grow in your faith by obeying his every word as contained in Scripture,
you begin to live an extraordinary life; you literally begin to hear voices.
Like Philip, when you have Jesus in you, you are able to know and do certain
things that are ordinarily impossible for your bare human nature.
There is the saying that you are what you eat. Whatever you
consume, that is exactly what you become. If you eat healthy food, you become
healthy. If you listen to positive talk, you develop a positive approach to
life. If you consume filth or allow the devil to feed your mind with immoral
materials, that is also exactly what you become. Jesus is fully aware of this
so he proposes a type of food for us that not only secures our physical health
but guarantees our eternal life.
When we eat this food, death has no more power over us. “This is
the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I
am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will
live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my
flesh.” John 6, 50 to 51.
Since whatever we eat, that is what we become, when we receive
Holy Communion, we become Jesus. And because Jesus lives forever, death has no
more power over him, we too begin to live forever. We need to have faith when
approaching the altar to receive communion, to know that is not just bread that
we consume but Jesus himself, whole and entire.
This faith matters a lot! In Luke chapter 8, we read of how
Jesus was invited to the home of Jarius whose daughter was on the point of
dying. As he went, the crowds pressed in on him. So many persons touched him,
some even squeezed their bodies with his as he passed but then, there was only
one woman who had faith to know the power of that touch. She had suffered from
a disease for twelve years and when she came and touched Jesus by the fringe of
his clothes, she immediately got her healing. In fact, Jesus had to ask, “who
touched me?” At face value, this question did not make sense since the entire crowd
were touching and rubbing him. But he knew what he meant. He knew that the
faith of the woman had extracted power from him.
This is just how Holy Communion is. A lot of people receive it
just because they see others queuing up for it, some think it is wafer, some do
not even think what they are receiving, their minds are not even there, some of
us have become so used to receiving it every day that we no longer believe it
is Jesus himself. Familiarity they say, breeds contempt. Like the crowd, we
touch Jesus every day but nothing changes in us. Faith makes all the
difference.
Let us Pray:
Lord Jesus, give me the grace to receive you worthily and grant
me eternal life. Amen.
God bless you. Good morning. Be
Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you.
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