Feeding on Jesus

"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again." (John 6:35, NLT)

Jesus goes on to talk about those who eat the bread of life having eternal life but we should not make the assumption that He is simply talking about our need to "feed" on Him for salvation. That is only part of the message.

Spiritually Hungry
The crowds that flocked to Jesus had been physically hungry and He fed 5,000 of them with just a few loaves and fish (v1-15). They had experienced a miracle which had satisfied their bodies, but they were not satisfied spiritually. They thought they needed another miracle (v30). Instead Jesus taught them that He is the bread from heaven and that feeding on Him is the source of eternal life (v57-58). Eternal life is not just our ultimate destiny, it is our present experience - "this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3, NIV). To feed on Jesus is to have eternal life which means to have experiential knowledge of Him today.

We all have spiritual hunger though we sometimes try to satisfy it in the wrong way. We seek the company of friends, we look for sources of entertainment, we work for wealth, possessions or status. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things, but if they are a substitute for feeding on Jesus, our spiritual hunger will never be satisfied.

How Much Food Do You Need?
I have found it is essential to my well being and my ability to cope with the day that I spend a substantial amount of time fellowshipping with the Lord before I do anything else. Actually, I don't even get out of bed until I've taken time to nourish my spirit with worship and Bible reading. If I fail to do that I struggle with the day and my family suffers because I become very short-tempered rather quickly.

We've looked before at the issue of how long we should spend in prayer and I'm still an advocate of Dick Eastman's method described in his book The Hour That Changes the World: A Practical Plan for Personal PrayerIt provides an excellent outline for developing a balanced prayer life, but for many people spending an hour in prayer is not possible.

I've come to the conclusion that the right amount of time for me to spend in feeding on Jesus is however long it takes for me to feel full. There comes a point when I know my spirit has received the nourishment it needs. To finish my prayer time before that leaves me spiritually weak for the rest of the day. To go beyond the point of feeling well fed is fruitless. I gain nothing extra from spending more time trying to pray. If I feel spiritually well fed after 30 minutes there's no point carrying on for another half-an-hour just so I can tick a box that says I prayed an hour today.

Where Intercession Fits
The "feeding on Jesus" that I've described here is simply a personal devotional time. Dick Eastman includes intercession in his hour of prayer but I found very early in my Christian experience that trying to include praying for others in the same slot as praying for myself didn't work.

I would be enjoying the Lord's company and then start to feel guilty because I wasn't mentioning the needs of others. Or I would be praying for friends, family and Christian workers but feel frustrated because I was neglecting feeding on Jesus.

What I have found most beneficial is to have two separate prayer times, one for just me and the Lord at the beginning of the day and a second period later in the day which I devote solely to praying for others. That way I feel I am giving my best to both my personal relationship with the Lord and to my intercession for others.

Prayer College Assignment
Do you feel spiritually well fed when you leave your devotional times? If not, ask the Lord to satisfy your hunger for Him each time you turn to Him in prayer.

When God Says, "No."

"You don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong - you want only what will give you pleasure" (Jms 4:2-3 NLT).

There are all sorts of reasons why our prayers are not answered in the way we would like them to be. The first is that we often don't actually pray for what we want and I've addressed that problem in April (check out the link on the side bar). Today I want to focus on what we can learn and how we can grow through unanswered prayer.

Ask God Why
I've often heard it said that it is not helpful to ask God the "why" question and that we should simply trust Him to work in our lives in His way and in His time. Many times that is true. We all go through phases of our lives when apparently inexplicable things happen to us and it seems that the Lord has failed to respond to our cry of desperation in our darkest hour. Our faith in a loving heavenly Father is stretched and we can either grow or crumble.

However, if we are not getting answers to our prayers we need to know if there is some fault on our part, a failure in us that we can rectify in order to get us to a place where our prayers will be answered. I learned this lesson 21 years ago whilst praying for friends who desperately wanted a child but were failing to conceive.

As I prayed with Karen I felt prompted to ask the Lord to show us if there was anything hindering the answer to our prayers. The Lord gently spoke to her heart through the story of the birth of Samuel. He revealed to her that she was seeking to fulfill her own maternal desires while God wanted to give her child she could dedicate to Him. Karen responded to the Lord and within a year her own son was born and she appropriately named him Samuel. It wasn't long before she had a daughter too.

The key to Karen's prayer for a child was in her willingness to hear the Lord explain why there had not yet been an answer.

Some Reasons
There are innumerable reasons why we might be the hindrance to our own prayers, or even to the prayers other people are praying for us. We need to be open to whatever the Holy Spirit wants to communicate to our hearts about our personal walk with Him. But there are some basic problems which, it seems to me, keep recurring.

The first and perhaps most obvious is unconfessed sin. Jesus responded to the paralysed man's need for healing by saying, "your sins are forgiven" (Matt 9:1-8) and James also relates forgiveness and healing when he talks about the elders anointing the sick (Jms 5:13-16).

That is not to say that sin is always the reason for unanswered prayers in relation to sickness. In my personal experience it is sometimes a case of enforced rest. The Lord allows us to be "set aside" for a while because we need physical or spiritual refreshment and we're too wilful to take the time out without Him imposing it upon us. I've seen this happen in the lives of others too. It's as though the Lord has said, "sit down and shut up for a minute and let me talk to you." Isn't this more or less what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19).

The final thing I want to mention is that sometimes the Lord doesn't answer our prayers because we haven't yet learned all we need to learn in the situation in which we find ourselves. Perhaps we're not seeing a breakthrough in our finances because we haven't yet learned the lessons God wants to teach us about living a simple life, sacrificial giving, or trusting Him to supply all our needs. Perhaps there are problems in our marriage because we haven't learned to live out the roles defined in Scripture, our love for our partner is greater than that we have for the Lord, or we haven't truly learned to forgive.

The reasons for unanswered prayer will be uniquely personal to our individual circumstances and our walk with the Lord. But if we are prepared to ask the Lord why He hasn't responded in the way we have asked, and are willing to be humble enough to hear His voice and respond, unanswered prayer can be the key to significant spiritual growth.

Prayer College Assignment
Are you experiencing the frustration of unanswered prayer? Try praying, "Lord, is there something in me that needs to change before you will say yes?" Make sure you listen for the answer and respond when it comes.