Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:35-40 ESV)
All that the Father gives Jesus will come to Him, and He will never cast any of what God gives Him out. And He has to do the will of the Father and that is to not lose anything that was given to Him.
But what has God given Him? And what is Jesus not losing?
Are we given by God to Jesus? I believe that I can not by my own will come to God. Yet do I have the power to say that I will not come to God, or I will not be given to Jesus?
Power is a big thing and we all think we have more than we do… We say we have control over our lives and that may be true, but do we have the power to not be given by God to Jesus? How big is grace and is it possible to not allow God to carry us to Jesus?
Yesterday I posted a blog called Carried… In it I discuss a little later in the 6th chapter of John where we are drawn by God to Jesus, and Martin Luther’s saying we can not come to God unless the Holy Spirit brings us. I believe God picks us up and carries us to the table, to the font, to everywhere we go that He or Jesus is involved. We can not by our own power come to God except that God help us come to Him. We as sinners can only come to the Holy if the Holy makes us clean. In the Roman Catholic understanding of this then, we can not come to the sacrament of confession unless God Himself carries us there! We can only come to the sacraments if carried by God. So there is never a time when we are not covered by God’s grace. We might be in need of forgiveness to understand fully the grace that covers us, but we are never not covered by God’s grace.
So are you given by God to Jesus… I can say for certain there is nothing in creation that is not covered by the grace of God. We may not understand the implications of this, but we have not far to go to find the arms of our God ready to carry us to places we do not deserve to go…
Allow God to give you to Jesus, and rest in His arms as He carries you to wonderful places!
aSacredRebel 