John 6:43-59

John 6:43-59 (New International Version)

⁴³ “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. ⁴⁶ No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
⁵² Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
⁵³ Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹ He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

The song Refiner's Fire was going through my head this morning.  Part of the song says, "I want to be holy, set apart for you my master, ready to do you will."  I admitted to God in prayer that I really don't want to be holy.  At least not in my flesh.  I felt drawn to Bible study this morning and I just had to smile when I read verse 44.  God has drawn me.  I will admit a desire to be of the world, but that will be with me till I am complete in Christ when in heaven.  But to ponder the fact that the God of the universe called me to him leaves me in awe.

The rest of these verses must have sounded like cannibalism to the listeners at the time, but now I know and understand that Jesus was speaking of his death for my sin.