NOTE: I will have limited access to internet for the next two weeks. Be assured, however, that even if I don’t post here I am keeping up the 49 Week Bible Challenge. I encourage you to join me in this discipline. I am using the YouVersion 49 Week Bible Challenge for these devotions. Today’s readings are John 6; Nehemiah 9-10; Job 9.
John 6:35-40
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
I’ve probably recounted this here before, but the impact of the incident – brief as it was – has stayed with me for 48 years.
I served my vicarage at Trinity Lutheran Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It happened one Sunday at the end of the service as people were filing out, shaking hands with the pastor and me. “Oh pastor,” she said, “that was the most wonderful message. I so needed to hear it.”
His text was from John 6:37 where Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me I will in never cast out.” It was one of four or five sermons I can recall hearing over the past many years. But it left a lasting impression. The pure good news of God’s grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ is sweet to the ear and salutary to the soul. It obviously impacted her greatly.
Just now, thinking about it, I wonder whether there is another promise in these few verses that is profound and impactful – if we but take it to heart. For the promise of being received by Jesus requires that he be gracious, forgiving, and loving. What’s more, it is necessary for the second promise to come to pass. For Jesus promises to raise us up – we who come to him – on the last day.
Eternal life is sometimes little thought of. Too often we think it’s little more than pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. But if you take the idea of life to the fullest, it’s more than just existing, breathing, eating, sleeping and having as much fun as you can. Life in the fullest sense – Jesus calls it life in abundance – is a full experience of every good thing God has to offer.
Today’s readings included a chapter from Job. Job makes a point of lamenting the unapproachable nature of God. There is no way we can defend ourselves before God.
“Truly I know that it is so:
But how can a man be in the right before God?
3 If one wished to contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand times. – Job 9:2-3
Then comes Jesus. “Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.” That’s quite a promise. And a second is remarkable as well: “Everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” What a promise – both of them!
David Bahn - Reflections 
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