Scripture reading: John 6:53-58
When Jesus spoke in John 6 about the need to eat His flesh and drink His Blood, some of His disciples misunderstood Him completely and left Him immediately, because they said that He was teaching them cannibalism! God is always teaching us SPIRITUAL THINGS and not carnal things; if He takes carnal things to give us natural understanding, then it means that that understanding must be translated in spiritual terms.
Jesus is saying that we should eat His flesh and drink His Blood. Feeding on Christ is the fourth stage in the Tabernacle of Moses or in the gospel, and it is the fourth seal. When we learn how to feed on Christ, we begin to understand the fourth seal. That seal is open and that trumpet is blowing. To understand this, we must first understand the three dimensions in which we feed on Christ.
1. Christ in the church,
2. Christ within, and
3. Christ in Jesus among us.
First, we feed on Christ from the Word. The Christ WITHOUT comes to us through the Word. We are told that the Word is life. John 1:1 and 2, “In the beginning was the Word (the Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” We are talking about God being with God. That is, the person we knew as the Word, manifesting in a man, Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is God. Verse 3, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” We find out here that the Word is a creative being, a creative person, this Word of God that we are dealing with. God translates Himself into Word form and issues forth this form to us and we capture it by faith. Verses 4 and 5, “In Him was life.” We spoke of the Word and now we say, “Him.” “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not (could not overcome it).”
We read the Word from the pages of the book and lift it off the pages by our consciousness of who God is and we receive the Word by faith. Believing the Word brings life to us. It is not that life is in the book and when we shut the book we shut up God in the book. The Word is life and the Word is hovering around us waiting for us to accept it. When we do, it becomes Christ, a person, a being, inside of us. Christ without is manifested to us through hearing and reading the Word.
Another person can manifest Christ to us. Christ is in us, therefore, He is in other people also. Being in other people, He manifests to us and we must have Christ in us to be able to receive Christ from someone else. Sometimes you do not have Christ IN you, but you can receive Christ, because Christ is WITH you. There are two manifestations. In John 14:17c, Jesus, speaking about the Holy Spirit says, “For he dwelleth WITH you, and shall be IN you.” There is a Christ with us and a Christ in us. The Christ in me will recognize the Christ in another person. This is why criticizing people destroys you as well as the other person. Criticizing means that you are not looking at Christ in the other person.
Some people do not have Christ in them and when they speak, you must be able to discern that it is not Christ speaking. The Christ in you will respond to the Christ in others. When a message is delivered, the Christ in the speaker will touch the Christ in you; it will bring a quickening in you and you will believe that the Word is true. The truth of God has to be believed by those who want God and by those who reach out towards God.
(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pages 116-118)
Thought for today: Let us feed abundantly this day on the Word of life and see His creative power come forth in our midst.