More Interesting Stuff from the Bible

So I'm reading through the Gospel of John. It's 'coincidental' that the church is now going through it as well right now in our current sermon series. 'Coincidental,' in that I didn't set out to read this part of the Bible just because the church is too. I'm just reading through the New Testament right now, and this is where I find myself. I was reading in chapter 5 about Jesus' healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda. Jesus confronts the man afterward and tells him, "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."

I'd always skipped over that part as Jesus just admonishing him to stop sinning. It never hit me till now that Jesus also implied that something worse could happen to the man! So I asked myself this question: What could be worse than being paralyzed for thirty-eigth years? It makes me cringe just thinking about it.


Now, I'm bogged down in chapter 6. There seems to be a bunch of stuff for me to learn in this chapter, so it's taking me several days to get through it. Most of it centers around the people who came looking for Jesus after He fed the five thousand. The people went to a lot of extra effort to track Him down, but Jesus saw that they were only coming to Him for more food. That got me thinking, do I go after Jesus just to get more physical things? I may truly need them (the people's need for food was certainly justified), but is that the only reason I'm seeking Jesus? Jesus urges me, "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life..." Hmm, food which endures to eternal life... That would imply something spiritual I would assume. So I need to spend my time working for the food that is going to endure for the rest of eternity.

The two questions I have to ask myself at this point are thus, "How can I spend my time and energy seeking food that endures to eternal life?" and, "Why to I spend so much more energy and everything else?" Hopefully I'll have some answers for you in the future.