What It Means to be Filled with the Holy Spirit # 12

"And When the Day of Pentecost Was Fully Come" (continued)

Christ is Our Passover (continued)

Now, there were varied reactions among this company who had sought Him out: most of them misunderstood Him completely and went away confused; "the Jews" heard His Words and rejected Him and continued to make plans to destroy Him, but the Word also tells us that "many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard this said, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?' " Why were both "the Jews" and the disciples so disturbed? First of all, we need to recall that they all knew that it was the Passover season; and they knew or suspected that Jesus was saying that no longer would the temple in Jerusalem, or the temple worship they loved so much, be the way of worship - all the ceremonies, all the ordinances, all the festal activities, all the methods, whether emotional or formal, were at an end, for God is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. The times has come, and now is, that they were to take Christ as their Life; and whether they were priests or Pharisees or prophets or scribes or ordinary everyday working people or mothers or children CHRIST WAS TO BE THEIR ALL.

Now, when we read this, we may wonder how they could give these things the preeminence over the Lord - the laws, the feasts, the priests, the ceremonies, etc. We may wonder why many of His disciples followed Him no more. But is not this the great problem of Christianity today, something other than Christ!? something that satisfies the natural man other than Christ!? Brethren, many things can take the preeminence of Christ in our lives: a Church organization, a Bible school, a pastor, a doctrine, a teaching, a method, even what we call deeper life teaching, etc. But only Christ can truly satisfy our hearts!

Christ is not saying I give you the Bread of Life; He is saying, "I AM the Bread of Life," and only as you partake of ALL THAT I AM will God have what He desires in your life. Only then will you have the True Reality that I AM in your life, for "I AM the Way, The Truth, and The Life." And as we have seen, for those who would wholly follow Him, this includes the partaking of the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13; Col. 1:24). So many of His disciples turned away and followed Him no more; many were offended at His Words, for His Words indicated that Life came out of death. In Luke 9:22, 23, we find this confirmed when the Holy Spirit significantly places the following Words of Christ just after He feeds the 5,000. We find Him alone and praying, and His disciples were with Him, and He said: "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third Day." And He said to them all, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 13)