John 6:15 -- So Jesus, aware that they intended to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself, alone.
Praise God I'm feeling better and we're back to traveling on our journey to see and hear Jesus in the book of John!
Jesus was traveling in the Galilee area and a large crowd was continually following Him, because of the miracles He'd been doing. The group numbered around five-thousand men. Adding in women and children, you can only imagine how big of a crowd this actually was. Jesus sits them down and feeds them by a miracle of multiplying a small boy's lunch of a fish and barley bread. Thousands of people were fed to the point where there were twelve baskets of leftovers. Such an amazing and loving miracle.
However, there is a shift in the crowd's demeanor and purpose that takes place. In verse two it specifically says the crowd followed Him because of the signs He'd done with the sick. They'd seen people being healed, so they pressed in and pressed on to follow. Now, each of them had a taste of His miraculous power. Following wasn't enough, He could do more for them, He could be their king and throw out the Roman Empire.
Christian, there is a danger to following Jesus for the wrong reasons. He constantly confronted people who came to follow Him to make them think about it. If the purpose isn't to seek first the Kingdom of God, to love God with everything, then love others as you love yourself, then it's all too easy to try and mold Him into the God of our needs, wants, desires, and purposes.
This crowd was ready to take Him by force and make Him be their king. Think about that. Jesus healed the sick and did nothing but good and they were going to seize Him and force Him to do things for them.
Oh Beloved, the trouble we get into when we're so focused on ourselves. We can justify about anything when we're looking at Jesus through the lens of our problems, instead of the lens of the Bible.
I pray you will get into your Bible and start getting to know Him. Get to know God and see who He is. The more you get to know Him and His Word, the more you'll start to see your problems through the lens of Jesus and when that happens, you realize your problems, while daunting and impossible to you, are nothing compared to Him. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, including endure and persevere through anything.
Well, that's all for today. Don't take my word on any of this, be the Berean and get into the Word yourself. Thank you for all the prayers over the last week while I was sick.
You are loved. You are prayed over. You are not alone.
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