Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 23:2-3
Lord, as I approach Your Word today;
lead me beside quiet waters,
refresh my soul.
and guide me along the right paths,
for Your name’s sake. Amen.
Reading
Reading this passage as those who have not grown up within a religion of actual animal sacrifices, we can very easily misunderstand Jesus, or even take offence at what He said. But if we place our “after-the-fact” knowledge that Jesus lived and died as a sacrifice for the world, alongside what those Jews knew about the sacrificial system, we can piece together a fairly clear understanding of what Jesus meant.
In the Jewish sacrificial system, when a worshipper presented an animal for sacrifice, parts of the animal were burnt as a direct sacrifice to God, other parts became the possession of the priests for their upkeep, and the rest of the animal was returned to the worshipper. The correct procedure was for them then to enjoy a worshipful, celebratory meal with their family and friends as part of their deepening of fellowship with God and God’s people.
The actual physical body of the sacrifice was eaten by the worshipper and this was understood to join them in fellowship with God and God’s people.
Now, we all know that to eat bread and drink fluid involves taking them into ourselves physically. Then, from within us, they nourish our bodies and give us life. When Jesus spoke here about eating and drinking Him (His body and His blood), He was clearly speaking as metaphorically as He had been when He called Himself the Bread of Life. His metaphor essentially meant that to share in the benefits of His sacrificial death and resurrection, we would need to enter into deep fellowship and connection with Him (the true sacrificial Lamb) such that we actually receive Him into ourselves.
No, we do not physically eat and drink Jesus. But we do receive Him into ourselves spiritually, and we do enter into a deep communion and connection with Him, where He lives in us (John 14:23, Romans 8:20, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 1:27). This is what Jesus was talking about here.
So today let’s receive this the way Jesus meant it and take it as a command to pursue deep, intimate fellowship with Jesus our Lamb and our Lord, who laid down His life for us and now lives in us!
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn this declaration over and over in your mind. Keep it in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will pursue intimate fellowship with Him at every opportunity, for He lives within me.
Lord Jesus, come to me, and dwell in my heart by faith. From within me, nourish me, and draw me close to You. Amen.
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