{"id":6136,"date":"2014-12-15T00:05:30","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T08:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6136"},"modified":"2014-12-14T16:26:32","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T00:26:32","slug":"the-messiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/12\/15\/the-messiah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Messiah"},"content":{"rendered":"

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, \u201cThis teaching is difficult; who can accept it?\u201d But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, \u201cDoes this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.\u201d For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, \u201cFor this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tBecause of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, \u201cDo you also wish to go away?\u201d <\/p>\n

Simon Peter answered him, \u201cLord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jesus answered them, \u201cDid I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.\u201d He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him. (John 6:60\u201371)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tSome people followed Jesus for reasons that made it possible for them to later turn away from him. When what Jesus taught them became hard, when he didn\u2019t seem to be taking them where they wanted to go, they abandoned him. <\/p>\n

\tBut Peter followed Jesus because he knew that he was the Messiah. Peter followed Jesus because he knew that he was going to bring in God\u2019s kingdom. Peter followed Jesus because he knew that with Jesus, he would have eternal life. <\/p>\n

\tBut Judas\u2014the one of the twelve who was \u201ca devil\u201d\u2014would be like the crowd who had abandoned him here. Judas would hang in for awhile yet, but the day would come, just as it had come for some of the crowd, for him to decide that what Jesus was about, that where Jesus was going, was simply not a place that Judas wanted to be. <\/p>\n

\tWe may not fully comprehend all the implications of what Jesus is and what he wants of us, but we know enough that like Peter, we can\u2019t imagine being without Jesus. Jesus is the only one who can give us what we can otherwise never have: eternal life. <\/p>\n

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When many of his disciples heard it, they said, \u201cThis teaching is difficult; who can accept it?\u201d But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, \u201cDoes this offend you? Then what if you were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6137,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions\/6137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}