Recovering Biblical Spirituality, Part 8

Chapter Three (continued)

Jesus is the bread of life. Whose bread are you eating? Whose table are you begging at? Paul commanded you to “eat your own bread.” Learn how to feed yourself the bread of life. Work to earn the spiritual substance that comes only through employment in the Great Commission. The whole purpose of ministry is to train you to partake of the riches of Jesus Christ within your own life and then to deal your bread to the hungry. A false minister will always leave you more dependent upon himself than on Jesus who lives in your own heart. The true minister will cause Jesus within your own heart to loom larger than Jesus in himself.  The benefits of the Kingdom (righteousness, joy, and peace) will not come to you unless you are willing to get involved and pursue the vocation wherewith you are called. You cannot legitimately pray, “Thy kingdom come” and then refuse to get involved.

Chapter four In this chapter, we will look closely at Jesus as the Bread of Life and as the Mannah that came down from heaven. By exploring this, you will see more clearly your personal responsibility to do for yourselves what tradition has taught you to look to the pastor or priest to do. You will also come to understand how to go about “eating your own bread,” and also “dealing your bread to the hungry.”  In John’s gospel is recorded an instance where Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes and fed five thousand. He then departed, only to be vigorously pursued by the crowd who hoped to get another free meal. He began to deal with them about their work ethic and to admonish them to labor for the truly important things in life, rather than trying to make investments that only alleviated temporary circumstances. The first thing to understand about eating your own bread is that work is involved. The ministers who preach the word to you put forth many hours in prayer and research in order to stand and deliver with great effort the word of God. By itself, the labor of preparing, researching, and delivering a forty-five-minute sermon taxes a man more than a forty-hour work week. I worked for the Mannah I am feeding you. I don’t mind sharing it with you, but if you see it as my obligation and you refuse to care for yourself as an able-bodied Christian, then my response to you is the same as the taxpayer toward a welfare cheat. You must embrace the responsibility to eat your own bread, nourish yourself on the bread of life that lives in your own heart and life. 

The western work ethic has become skewed when viewed up against Biblical vocational principles. The “Thank-God-Its-Friday” philosophy conflicts with the concept of vocational redemption. In the world, secular work and sacred work are two separate things. In Christ, you are to do all things “as unto the Lord.” Every Christian should be involved in a vocation that he can boldly say, “This is God’s call for my life. This is my place in the Kingdom of God.” Whether it is pumping gas on the corner, or working for NASA, Eph. 4:1 says to walk worthy of the vocation wherein you are called. For the Christian, work is more than just putting in your forty hours. Heaven is not going to be a big retirement party. There will be work to do in heaven! Adam had work to do in the garden, to tend and care for it. Work is not done to achieve reward, but out of gratitude to the God who, in His Son, has given you all things richly to enjoy. 

It is true that works are not the basis of salvation, but work is involved. The writer of Hebrews provokes us to “Labor to enter in His rest…” In the New Testament, the word “labor” is defined as, “to work; to do; to minister; to commit; to trade; to make gains by trading, “do business”; work out, exercise, perform, commit, to cause to exist, produce .” God expects you to produce! You are to be a committed, active component of the local body of Christ. If you are otherwise, He will wean you away from spiritual nourishment until you get hungry enough to repent. 

Paul exhorted the Thessalonians not to feed a man who would not work for a living. In the world, the crime rate and the unemployment rate are closely linked to one another. The spiritually unemployed likewise are the biggest troublemakers in the church. Paul called these misfits “busybodies, working not at all…” You are either a worker or a busybody. 

A busybody is one who sets about to: bustle about uselessly, to busy one’s self about trifling, needless, useless matters: used apparently of a person officiously inquisitive about other’s affairs. It has been said that 99% of local churches don’t matter. At one time, Christianity was characterized by individual accountability to Jesus Christ, commitment to ongoing repentance, and deep involvement in God’s purpose. At this time the churches largely contribute nothing more to society than a food stamp office. They meet a level of legitimate need but tend to be characterized as facilitating the weak and irresponsible.  It is no more right for you to come into the local church and sit idly by while others work to meet your needs than it is for an able-bodied man to look to others for what he is capable of contributing himself. It is just as wrong to fail in responsibilities in the local church as it is to shirk responsibilities on the job. Paul commanded those lazy persons to quiet down and get to work. Those who do the least in the church squawk the loudest about all its shortcomings. The church is the place where you should come not only to be fed but to learn to care for your own needs and the needs of others. This is Paul’s plain intention in his writing to the Ephesians about the fivefold ministry. 

It is the purpose of God that His people throughout the Christian religious system, be brought to a perfect man. Note in Ephesians four, the association of this perfect man, with the word work. God is perfecting you for work. The whole purpose of the fivefold ministry is to get you motivated, equipped, and involved in work. Using the analogy of business, you are called to the work of the ministry. The military expression would be that you are called to the good fight of faith.

Those who only followed Jesus for the loaves and fishes rejected His comments on labor. They did not want to work, so they asked Him what the secret was to multiplying loaves and fishes. They wanted to do the works of God on their own terms without dealing with Jesus. He answered them that the work of God is believing in Him.  Many today think they believe in God, but their security is in buildings, doctrines, and the clerical class. Take these away, and their walk with God ceases to exist. Knowing this, Jesus tied the labor that God requires directly to His person. He put the pressure on the crowd to work, to produce something, not just having a hand out all the time. The crowd wanted Jesus to do something, but He was expecting them to do something. He was expecting them to believe. These people in John, chapter six, were crying out for natural resources. Jesus offered Himself as the true solution to their needs, saying, “I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger…” Yet following out God’s principle, it is evident that if we are to be fed, then work is involved, because God commanded not to feed the one who would not work.

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