Earthly and Eternal Blessings

Every once and a while I hear or read the saying, “If you have trouble sleeping, don’t count sheep; count your blessings.”  It’s a nice reminder.

Take a moment and count your blessings.  Think for a few minute of all the good things in your life. 

What did you list?  Family?  Friends?  Health?  Home?  Job?  Nature?  Forgiveness? 

I often find that when I start thinking about my blessings the physical stuff is what comes to my mind first.  But when I weigh the physical against the spiritual blessings we have received, the heavenly far outweighs the earthly. 

This is essentially the misunderstanding of the people in John 6; they preferred the earthy stuff to the eternal blessings Jesus was offering them.  They thought it was amazing that Jesus healed people.  They loved being miraculously fed with bread and fish.  They rejoiced in the physical blessings Jesus was pouring out on them.  But Jesus reminded them, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” 

The greatest blessing God has ever given us is that of His Son who was given as the atoning sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world.  This is the greatest good He can give us; Jesus gives us Himself, His life, even His first, last, and resurrected breath.  What a blessing!  God gives us a right relationship with Him through Jesus’ death and resurrection!  We get to be God’s people, and we get to have Him as our God. 

Luther wrote in the Large Catechism, “To ‘have’ God, you can easily see, is not to take hold of Him with our hands or to put Him in a bag (like money) or to lock Him in a chest (like silver vessels).  Instead, to ‘have’ Him means that the heart takes hold of Him and clings to Him.  To cling to Him with the heart is nothing else than to trust in Him entirely.  For this reason God wishes to turn us away from everything else that exists outside of Him and to draw us to Himself.”  (emphasis added)

We worry so much about physical stuff that it distracts us from God.  We desire the physical bread, and disdain the spiritual.  Yet in this chapter that we will linger in through next Sunday (John 6) we hear Jesus calling to the crowd and to us to look beyond the physical blessings to the spiritual gifts, the eternal gifts, the everlasting life that God gives to those who believe in Jesus. 

To be sure, God cares about our physical needs.  It was Jesus, after all, who taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  God created both the physical and the spiritual, and as human beings we are both physical and spiritual beings.  We don’t want to get so wrapped up in the physical part of life that we lose sight of the spiritual.  Nor do we want to become so “spiritual” that we do no physical good! 

Take some time today to count your blessings, and start with the faith that you have in Jesus, for it is a gift, too!  Then pray a prayer of thanks.  After all, God has promised to hear your prayers. 

Questions to Ponder

Look back at John 6:35-51, our Gospel Lesson from last Sunday. 

-          How does Jesus describe His relationship with the Father here?  What does this mean for where He derives His authority?  What implication does this have for us and our authority to speak God’s Word?

-          In verse 41 it says that the Jews grumbled about Jesus.  Literally, it says that they were grumbling.  Look back in Numbers 14.  How often did the Israelites grumble against God and Moses?  Do we ever grumble against Jesus?

-          In verse 42, what is the Jews’ complaint?  What did they assume about Jesus?  What did they not understand? 

-          What do these passages say about how a person comes to faith?  (Pull out your copy of Luther’s Small Catechism and read over his explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed.)  How does this fit with the exhortation to decide to follow Jesus?

-          How many times does Jesus talk about raising people up in the reading?  Look beyond it and see if Jesus mentions it again.  What is our hope after we die?  How can this belief help you in your daily life?

-          Re-read verses 49-51.  How would you explain what Jesus is saying here to a child or to a person who does not yet believe in Jesus?  How does this impact your daily life? 

-          When do earthly things distract you from God’s eternal blessings?  Where do your daily experiences run into eternal realities?  Where do physical and spiritual realities come together in your life?