And when you fast, do not look gloomy as the hypocrites do, for they make their faces disappear to show people they are fasting. Amen I tell you, they have their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you will not be seen by people as fasting, but by your Father, the One who is in secret. Then your Father, the One who sees all secrets, will repay you. ~ JESUS (Matthew 6:16-18)
SUMMARY: Read this and skip the rest (if you want)
Jesus is teaching us the importance of having a private, secret, one-on-one relationship with the Father.
Fasting has a rich history in Jewish tradition and Jesus assumes his disciples will continue fasting as part of their spiritual practice.
Fasting is a way of putting God in the centre of our attention. We stop eating to welcome guests into our presence.
We should never use fasting (or giving mercy or praying or any other spiritual practice) in order to seek human approval. Otherwise we miss out on a bonding experience with God.
When we habitually seek our reward from people, we are also more susceptible to shame when we do not receive human approval.
Training is better that trying. Training in the small things (like fasting) can prepare our hearts to respond reflexively with grace and mercy in more demanding scenarios.
Ultimately, we need to do whatever helps us learn to rely on Jesus as our real food and first love.
CORE
(The heart of the message)
The need for affirmation and acceptance is within us and we should not deny it. Yet, this hunger is too huge for a human-only solution. God wants to free us from our addiction to human praise through his own unconditional love.
"What Jesus is teaching us to do in this important passage from his Discourse is to be free of control by the opinions of others."
~ Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy)
CONTEXT
(What’s going on before and after this passage)
Jesus has begun a new section of his sermon, instructing his disciples on how to develop a personal, private, hidden, secret spiritual life. He began by saying:
Be careful about your own righteousness. Do not perform a show in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward with your Father in the heavens. ~ JESUS (Matthew 6:1)
Now he moves on to address three examples:
secret giving (right-relatedness toward others)
secret prayer (right-relatedness toward God)
secret fasting (right-relatedness toward ourselves)
In each case, Jesus stresses the importance of cultivating a secret spiritual life that protects us from seeking our value and meaning from anyone other than God.
We are addressing these three examples of secret spirituality out of order. In our last study we addressed the first top secret: giving. In this study we will skip ahead to the last example: fasting. The second example of prayer is more developed and contains the Lord's Prayer, so we will address that in multiple studies, beginning with our next study after this one.
For more context, see our previous study here.
On this topic of fasting, Jesus is in continuity with Old Testament prophets who also condemned false religious fasting for show (Isaiah 58:1-12; Joel 2:12-17). In the Torah, God commands Israel to fast just one day each year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29-31; 23:27-32; Numbers 29:7). Yet over time Jews also fasted voluntarily for various reasons (Nehemiah 1:4; 9:1; Psalm 35:13; Daniel 9:3; Zechariah 7:3-5; 8:19).
This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.” ~ The Prophet Zechariah (Zechariah 8:19)
At the time of Christ, the Pharisees fasted two days each week (Luke 18:12), on Mondays and Thursdays (though some scholars like Charles Quarles - best name ever - believe this only happened during certain times of the year). Jews were so well known for integrating regular fasting into their religious practice that, according to Tacitus, when the Roman Emperor Augustus wanted to brag about how much he fasted, he said he fasted even more than a Jew.
The early Church adopted the Jewish two-day-per-week-fast as their own common practice, although they changed the days to Wednesdays and Fridays (The Didache, 8:1).
"Let not your fasts be aligned with the hypocrites, for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays. Instead, do your fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays." ~ The Didache (8:1)
Jesus fasted in the wilderness for 40 days before beginning his public ministry. The only reason given in the Gospels is a head-to-head confrontation with Satan. Perhaps refusing to eat for 40 days made Jesus weak and that was part of his temptation and testing. But more likely, Jesus fasted in order to be strong in that battle. Satan thought Jesus' hunger could be used against him, but Jesus used his physical hunger to make him all the more dependent on God (Matthew 4:1-4; Luke 4:1-4; also see John 4:32-34).
Although Jesus was directly tempted by Satan, when he talks about the kinds of things that distract people from coming to his Kingdom Banquet, he does not mention Satan. Instead, Jesus says that people miss out on the best invitation ever because of the cares of this world, new possessions, doing business, and putting human relationships ahead of our relationship with God (e.g., Matthew 22:1-5; Luke 14:18-20; also see Matthew 13:22; Mark 4:19; Luke 8:14).
Whether battling Satan directly or battling the distractions of daily life, the practice of regular fasting can help us loosen our grip on the things of this world.
CONSIDER
(Observations about the passage)
When you. Jesus did not say "If you fast" or "You must fast" but "When you fast". In each example, Jesus assumes rather than commands giving, praying, and fasting. Jesus believes his disciples will want to participate in the spiritual practices that help develop their hearts and their bond with the Father (Matthew 9:15). The secret spiritual life of Jesus is a privilege, not a pressure. In this passage, he says "when you fast" twice, leaving some scholars thinking that this is Jesus' way of stressing the importance of fasting for his disciples. This should be balanced by the fact that Jesus never directly teaches on fasting for his followers anywhere else (Matthew 9:14-17 responds to a question) and the apostle Paul never mentions it. At the same time, the early church seemed to practice fasting as a normal part of their spiritual expression (e.g., Acts 13:2-3; 14:23). For them, fasting was normal and helpful, a benefit but not a burden.
"Jesus implies that those who follow him will fast from time to time, but he says nothing about frequency, occasion, or method." ~ Leon Morris (The Gospel According to Matthew)
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. ~ Luke the Physician (Acts 13:2-3; also see 14:23)
Fast. Fasting refers to giving up something, usually food, sometimes also water, for a period of time. Interestingly, in the Bible both fasting and feasting can be used to mark special experiences with God (Matthew 9:14-15). Jesus taught us to commemorate his death with a meal, not a fast. Food seems to matter as a tool to express intimacy and importance, whether through feasting or fasting. Jews fasted regularly to express their devotion to God and to honour sacred experiences (e.g., the Day of Atonement). Jesus began his public ministry with an extended time of solitude while he fasted (Matthew 4:1-2). Fasting can be a way of mourning an absence (Matthew 9:15), a way of acknowledging that we are not as close to God as we want to be and things are not all as they should be. Yet fasting can also be a way of saying this time I'm spending with God is more important to me than my felt needs. Think of an important person coming to your home for a visit - maybe a celebrity or the King or Queen, or any treasured friend you haven't seen for a long time. When they walk in you probably wouldn't continue chowing down on your baloney sandwich while you chat with them. Even if they interrupted your dinner, you would get up from the table, forget entirely about your meal, and give them your full attention. So not eating can be a meaningful way of honouring someone in your presence. Walking away from your food is part of saying "You are here! I'm glad to see you! Welcome!" And that is the key: at its best, fasting can help us become more aware of God with us. For Christ-followers, fasting also helps us practice self-denial, which in turn trains us in loving others unselfishly (a theme in the Sermon on the Mount). The early Church fasted and prayed during times of worship and honouring God (Acts 13:2-3; 14:23) - again, fasting says, "You're here!" The Pharisees at the time of Christ fasted two days per week (Luke 18:12). The first generations of Christians followed this pattern of twice-weekly fasting, although they changed the days from Mondays and Thursdays to Wednesdays and Fridays so as not to be associated with the "hypocrites" (The Didache). We will benefit by training our hearts with giving and prayer and fasting while also being cautious about creating legalisms around these relational activities.
Make their faces disappear to show. There is a word play in the Greek between the words for "disappear" and "show": Jesus says the hypocrites make their faces disappear (aphanizó, to make unseen, hide, or destroy) so they can SHOW (phainó, to make seen) people how spiritual they are. The two words are etymologically related and together they seem to describe the art of drawing attention to yourself by looking like you're not trying to draw attention to yourself. How they erased their face is unknown, but it may refer to covering themselves in ashes, or just looking so gloomy and downcast that they seem to want to disappear, which can attract attention through pitty. Whatever they did, the result is ironic: they looked like they neglected their appearance in order to highlight their appearance. This is an art and many of us are good at it - getting noticed by looking like we're being self-effacing; using feigned humility to express our pride; attracting pitty by looking like we want to be invisible. Brilliant! Although with fasting this art of attention seeking takes more work. Both giving and prayer can be more easily performative for others to observe, but fasting is so private it is harder to put on a religious show. So some religious people find ways to drop hints that they are fasting by how they look or what they say. This idea of performative religiosity happens today in more ways than giving, prayer, and fasting. When admiration from other people becomes our drug of choice, performative religiosity, dramatized justice-seeking, and demonstrative moral outrage become a form of praise-fishing. We need our next "hit", our next "fix" of our admiration-from-others-for-our-amazing-righteousness drug.
"The contempt of men's praise is no small fruit, for thereby we are freed from the heavy slavery of human opinion." ~ John Chrysostom (d. 407 AD)
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. ~ The apostle Paul (Galatians 6:1)
Hypocrites. For a second time, Jesus calls the religious leaders hypocrites (Greek hupokrités). The word is used a lot by Jesus and reveals some important things about our temptation to turn righteousness into theatre. (For a deeper dive into this word, see our previous study here.)
Anoint your head and wash your face. While fasting is often associated with mourning in Jewish tradition, anointing is associated with celebration (e.g., Psalm 23:5; 104:15). Jesus is turning fasting on it's head. For religious people it is a burden and they want credit for bearing it. For Christ-followers fasting should be a privilege, not a pressure. When we do good deeds to be noticed, we are not helping others by lifting them up as much as we are using others to help lift up ourselves. It is hard not to do our good deeds to be noticed by others. Being seen as a good person by other people is always a strong emotional payoff. And because humans have a proclivity to usurp the place of God by sitting in judgement over one another, we know that others are always judging us the same way we are judging them. Later in this sermon Jesus will tell us not to judge, but first he helps us become free from the judgement of others. We don't need their approval; we need God's. So Jesus teaches us to practice, practice, practice letting go of this kind of human "reward" by doing deeds of secret goodness. This helps us detach and detox from our attention-from-others drug.
"The only purpose for such practices [like fasting] is to make disciples more willing and more joyous in following the designated path and doing the works required of them." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
Amen. This word is often translated "Truly" as in, "Truly I tell you". It is simply an affirmation of something said. Just like today, in Jesus day "Amen" was usually said at the end of a prayer or a statement, as a way of saying "Yes!" or "I agree!" or "Right on!" So Jesus is being unusual for his time to begin important sentences with "Amen I tell you". He is front-end-loading his own affirmation, as if to say "What I'm about to tell you is so true, you better pay attention."
Not be seen by people as fasting. Just like with giving, this does not mean that no one can know we are fasting. It is okay to be seen fasting, but not okay to fast in order to be seen. Jesus is concerned with our hearts.
Secret. The word for "secret" is kruptos, from which we get our English word kryptic. It refers to something that is hidden. The apostle Paul uses the same word to refer to Christians who are true, hidden, secret Jews.
A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly (Greek, kruptos); and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God. ~ The apostle Paul (Romans 2:28-29)
Kinda looks like the apostle Paul was mentored by Jesus, eh? Jesus will say God the Father is "in secret" and "sees secrets". God is, in some ways, hidden and he enjoys his life with us when we are also, in some ways, hidden.
Your Father who sees all secrets. While humans look at the outward appearance, God looks into the heart (1 Samuel 16:7; Hebrews 4:12-13). Does God seeing our secrets comfort us? Encourage us? Or stress us out? Jesus wants this to be an encouragement, since this God is our "Father". In this sermon, Jesus calls God our "Father" (Greek, patér) a total of 17 times and 10 of those times are in this section (Matthew 6:1-18). The super concentration of Father imagery is meant to bathe this entire discussion in a sense of God's protective, nurturing care. As Jesus has just finished teaching, our heavenly Father loves us extravagantly and unconditionally (see our study here). God sees us at our worst, and he loves us. God sees our secret sins, and he loves us. God sees our selfish choices, and he loves us. God sees the images in our minds and the emotions we harbour, and he loves us. God is not surprised with our human frailty and propensity to wander. At what point did the Father of the Prodigal Son stop loving his boy or give up on him?
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.(Hebrews 4:12-13)
Reward/Repay. Jesus has already mentioned the idea of "reward" in 5:12 and 5:46 and will again multiple times. The idea of reward can sound like payment for a specific behaviour, and in one sense this is true, but by placing the idea in the context of a loving relationship with our heavenly Father, Jesus has decommercialized it. The two words translated "reward" and "repay" in this passage are different in Greek (worth pointing out since most English versions translate both as "reward"). The first ("they have received their reward") is the classic word for reward, but the second ("your Father... will repay you") is a different word meaning to repay, restore, give back. Humans "reward" us and God "repays" us. Huh. There is certainly overlap since God's "repayment" is also called "reward" in 6:1. Taken as a whole, Matthew's record of Jesus seems to be saying: it pays to invest in our relationship with God. Apparently, the Christian life is not supposed to be so selfless that we feel the need to say "I get nothing out of it", but rather our focus is on getting the right benefit in the right way from the right Source. For Jesus, the idea of "reward" is both "here and now" as well as "there and then". The reward of deeper and greater intimacy with the Almighty can be experienced here and now in our spiritual lives, just as Jesus taught the Kingdom of the Heavens was coming here and now. And at the same time, there will always be more to look forward to in the future. As we learned in our previous study, being with God is the ultimate reward.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ~ JESUS (John 14:3)
"What you are in private is what you really are." ~ N.T. Wright (Matthew for Everyone)
When you fasted... was it really for me that you fasted? ~ Yahweh (Zechariah 7:5)
CONFESSION
(Personal reflection)
I confess that I hate this topic. I don't like fasting, and I don't like talking about fasting. I like food. I dislike not having food. End of story.
Part of the issue for me is (okay, time to get personal all up in here).... I am hyper aware that I am a fat, plump, portly, pudgy, chubby, chunky monkey, XXL kinda guy. I feel a sense of shame associated with food and the topic of self-denial, which I apparently don't practice well enough. It's like I'm wearing my failure (one of many) around my waist for all to see.
Well, now that I have a much bigger failure in my life for all to see, I'm finding fasting a little less intimidating to talk about.
I have fasted semi-regularly for most of my adult life, including some ten-day fasts and one forty-day fast. And yet, I feel like a fasting failure, partly because I don't "look" like I fast. How immature is that?!
And that's the point, huh: I am being a hypocrite in the Jesusy sense of the word - someone who is concerned about appearances more than their heart reality. I am worried that other people will say: How can a fat person know anything about fasting? (Easy. We make up for it on the other days. This isn't rocket science.)
So I am challenging myself, and some of you too: whether we are super thin or on the more plus-sized end of the spectrum, let's shed the shame surrounding food and spiritual practice. Jesus said focussing on the externals is hypocrisy, and we want none of that.
Shame-free fasting discussion zone starts here: Stamped it. No erasies.
Speaking of shame, I am learning how much shame can drive us to hide our true selves, like it did Adam and Eve when they sinned. And I suspect shame is what drove the one lost sheep away from the rest of the flock in Matthew 18.
Shame is that sense that we have lost our value, that we have been diminished in spirit, that we are somehow less-than who we were made to be. Guilt is the feeling that I have done something bad. Shame is the feeling that I am bad.
Shame is the opposite of living with honour, glory, and security - the way God originally made us to live. It is no accident that one of the first things the Bible says about our God-given human identity is that we were made "naked (that is, vulnerable) and unashamed" (Genesis 2:25). Our vulnerable, open-hearted honour, out of which all meaningful relationship is cultivated, is what sin seeks to destroy in all of us.
Often through our own failure, shame will drive us away from others, who we fear will only reinforce our shame. Shame will lead us to make a preemptive maneuver to move away from people, to hide the truth, to isolate our true selves, because we fear they will abandon us if they know the truth. We cover our shame with the fig leaves of fear, lies, busyness, and judgmentalism.
When we are ashamed, some of us will implode and others will explode. Some of us will collapse internally and want to disappear. Others of us will erupt with angry judgmentalism, motivated by a subconscious drive to shift shame away from themselves and onto someone else. I have seen both of these reactions first-hand and up close.
To overcome our shame, we need to be both known and loved. God's grace does this for us - only God fully knows us and fully loves us, perfectly. When we are busy trying to appear extra holy to others, we miss out on this reward from the Father. When God found Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes of Eden, he was not disappointed with their nakedness but with their fig leaves.
"There is no hint of shame in his gaze or his voice." ~ Curt Thompson (The Soul of Shame)
So secret spiritual practices are God-given ways for us to slow down and tune in to the voice and the gave that obliterates shame.
Over the past couple of years I have spent more time than usual just sitting and staring out the window. Some days that's all the activity I can muster. I watch the squirrels and chipmunks and birds (and sometimes raccoons and opossums) in our backyard and I realize that whatever behaviour is not about shelter or reproduction is about food - finding, gathering, storing, and eating food. Food is life.
And when I watch our dog watch me when I'm preparing food - Will any fall to the ground? Will my human willingly share a bite? I must pay attention! - I see how important food is to all animal psyches.
All of this reminds me: one of the benefits of fasting is that, through fasting we take authority over our animal selves. We step outside our own animal instincts and declare to ourselves that we are more than animals. We are image bearers of God and our lives consist of something that includes yet goes beyond the physical world.
And when we fast (or give or pray or any other good deed) without paying attention to who is paying attention, we are slowly freeing our souls from the bondage of caring what others think.
Whatever our position in life, if our lives and works are to be of the kingdom of God, we must not have human approval as a primary or even major aim. We must lovingly allow people to think whatever they will."
~ Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy)
I want this freedom. Don't you?
I have food to eat that you know nothing about. ~ JESUS (John 4:32)
COMMENTARY
(Thoughts about meaning and application)
Both giving and fasting, the first and third illustration of keeping a secret spiritual life, are two forms of self-denial. In giving, we release what we would prefer to keep for ourselves. And in fasting we refuse what we would prefer to take for ourselves. Both are practices that, over time, can train our hearts to love well.
Spiritual training is a beautiful idea. Rather than feel the pressure to do the big bombastic demonstrations of Christ-like love, especially enemy love, we can simply begin where we are and slowly get better at loving others unconditionally.
"Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely." ~ John Ortberg (The Life You've Always Wanted)
Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. ~ The apostle Paul (1 Timothy 4:7)
I love how relevant Scripture will always be to our lives. In the above verse, Paul is telling his younger trainee, Timothy, not to be distracted by conspiracy theories or sensational rumours. Some things never change eh? If you are not going to get directly involved in helping solve an issue, then why listen to rumours and waste time thinking about it, let alone pass the information on to others? Just stop! And focus on your next step in following Jesus. Let's focus on training ourselves to be better versions of ourselves.
The best gift we can give the world around us is to model an alternative for them - an alter-cultural society that demonstrates a different way of living and loving. The best thing we can do for our nation is to be ambassadors of a different country - the Jesus Nation, also called the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. And the best way we can live out our potential as citizens, soldiers, and ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven is to train ourselves each day in the ways of Jesus.
(For more information about being citizens, soldiers, and ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, get a Kingdom of Heaven Passport here.)
Spiritual practices (sometimes called spiritual disciplines) are a gift. They train our hearts in small ways to do big things.
A discipline is an activity in our power that we do to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.
~ Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy)
Don't rush past that last quote from Willard too quickly. There may be big spiritual things we cannot yet do (like forgiving serious sin or expressing enemy love toward a hurtful person), but there are always small things we can do, and if we do them regularly, the big things will become more doable.
If you want to learn to bench press 100 lbs., the secret is not to TRY to do it, but to TRAIN to do it. For most of us, if we go to the gym three times a week and TRY to lift a 100 lbs, each time we will fail. Even if we stick to it for a year, going three times a week to try to lift that same wait, we will keep failing and at the end of that year we would be no closer to our goal. In fact, when we see no progress, we would probably give up much sooner. But if we start with 40 lbs, and over time increase the weight by increments, we will be more likely to see progress, stick to it, and eventually reach our goal. That is the power of training over trying.
When giving and fasting and praying and other practices become our secret points of connection with God, we are training our hearts for a deeper relationship with God and for loving our enemies in radical Jesusy ways.
Jesus assumes his followers will want to train our hearts to love well using tools like regular giving and fasting, letting go and refusing to take. This kind of regular spiritual practice can make other-centred love more of a reflex rather than a calculus - something we do automatically and naturally, rather than something we have to figure out and force ourselves to do. [Remind me to tell you a story about my experience with reflexive VS calculated grace.]
When Jesus was dying on the cross and prayed for the forgiveness of his executioners and the mocking crowd, did he have to do the mental math of grace and decide that praying for his persecutors' forgiveness would be a good thing to do? Or, more likely, did forgiveness flow out of him naturally, because this was his heart toward humanity? We might protest: "But that's Jesus! We're no Jesus!" True. But what about Stephen, who also died praying for the forgiveness of his killers (Acts 7:59-60)? And what about the stories we have of most of the original disciples, forgiving their enemies throughout their lives, including during their murders? And what about the first generations of persecuted Christians who, reports say, died in the Roman arenas while expressing grace and blessing toward their persecutors?
Over the course of our lives, we will be given opportunities to love largely and boldly, the way Jesus describes in the last section of Matthew 5 (see our studies on this kind of bold love here and here). There will be times when an enemy persecutes us, a spouse betrays us, a friend hurts us, a parent abuses us, a child abandons us, a stranger offends us, a neighbour insults us, a pastor fails us, a church disappoints us - these are experiences that call for a strong Jesus-like love. In those times, we could work hard to do the mental calculus of love ("I know I'm supposed to forgive others the way Christ forgave me, so I better get to work on that").
But wouldn't it be even better if love, mercy, and compassion flowed naturally and effortlessly out of us as a kind of reflex or instinct? This can happen, when we train our hearts in partnership with the Holy Spirit.
When we regularly take time to give away what we want to keep, and to not take to ourselves what we want to have, we are training ourselves to love more reflexively when the opportunity comes. This is especially true if we partner our giving and fasting with meditation on the Platinum Rule of Christ:
A new command I give you: Love one another as I have loved you. This is how you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. ~ JESUS (John 13:34-35)
(Also see Romans 15:7; Ephesians 4:32-5:2; Colossians 3:13; 1 John 3:16; 4:10-11 )
We give because God has given us so much. We fast remembering that Jesus did not live to please himself, but loved us self-sacrificially. Giving and fasting, when we do this in a way that forms a bond with God (that is, secretly) train us in the love of Christ.
Here is the apostle Paul's more detailed description of the Platinum Rule of Jesus:
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! ~ The apostle Paul (Philippians 2:1-8)
CONCLUSION
(One last thought)
Jesus said life with his Father was his real food (John 4:34). And then he told his disciples that life with Jesus should be ours.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. ~ JESUS (John 6:51)
CONTEMPLATE
(Scripture passages that relate to and deepen our understanding of this topic)
Genesis 2:25; John 6:32-59; Galatians 1:10
CONVERSATION
(Talk together, learn together, grow together)
What is God revealing to you about himself through this passage?
What is God showing you about yourself through this passage?
What has been your experience with shame? What, if anything, has helped you find freedom?
What is one thing you can think, believe, or do differently in light of what you are learning?
What questions are you still processing about this topic?
