{"id":5058,"date":"2014-02-21T00:05:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T08:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5058"},"modified":"2014-02-20T14:07:36","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T22:07:36","slug":"what-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/02\/21\/what-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

The people who had stayed on the east side of the lake knew that only one boat had been there. They also knew that Jesus had not left in it with his disciples. But the next day some boats from Tiberias sailed near the place where the crowd had eaten the bread for which the Lord had given thanks. They saw that Jesus and his disciples had left. Then they got into the boats and went to Capernaum to look for Jesus. <\/p>\n

They found him on the west side of the lake and asked, \u201cRabbi, when did you get here?\u201d <\/p>\n

\tJesus answered, \u201cI tell you for certain that you are not looking for me because you saw the miracles, but because you ate all the food you wanted. Don\u2019t work for food that spoils. Work for food that gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give you this food, because God the Father has given him the right to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cWhat exactly does God want us to do?\u201d the people asked. <\/p>\n

\tJesus answered, \u201cGod wants you to have faith in the one he sent.\u201d (John 6:22-29)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tIt is hard for people to see past the obstacles in front of them. What excited the crowds was not what Jesus had said. What moved them was not the healings or the exorcisms. What really got their attention was when he fed them for free. <\/p>\n

\tJesus compared the food that he had given them\u2014food that could spoil\u2014to the food that they should really want: the bread that could give them eternal life. Jesus then promised to give them that food. They could have it for free, too.<\/p>\n

\tAnd what was their response? To wonder what they had to do to get it.<\/p>\n

\tWe advance in school because we do our homework and pass our tests. We get paid because we do our jobs. We obey the traffic laws to avoid tickets. In life, we receive reward or avoid punishment on the basis of our behavior. So it was only natural, when Jesus berated the people for coming to him only on account of the free food to think, \u201cah there\u2019s something he wants us to do. Something that he thinks God requires.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tInstead, all Jesus asked them to do was to trust him. And that\u2019s all Jesus asks of us today: we don\u2019t have to perform a mighty deed. We don\u2019t have to answer a difficult riddle. We don\u2019t have to follow a list of rules. All Jesus needs us to do is to trust him.<\/p>\n

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The people who had stayed on the east side of the lake knew that only one boat had been there. They also knew that Jesus had not left in it with his disciples. But the next day some boats from … 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":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5058"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5060,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions\/5060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}