HOW MUCH FRUIT OF LIFE DO WE EAT?
LIVING BY JESUS


September 16, 2012
MF Blume

  Scripture Text:



John 6:47-63 KJV  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.  (48)  I am that bread of life.  (49)  Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.  (50)  This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.  (51)  I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.  (52)  The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?  (53)  Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.  (54)  Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.  (55)  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  (56)  He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.  (57)  As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.  (58)  This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.  (59)  These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.  (60)  Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?  (61)  When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?  (62)  What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?  (63)  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

I want to really LIVE this Christian life.
·    Entering the KINGDOM is truly LIVING the life Jesus died for us to live.
·    He died for far more than freeing us from Hell’s death row.
·    Most of the teachings of the New Testament are all the glorious truths for us to enter the KINGDOM TODAY and really enjoy Life.
·    The largest bulk of the work of the cross, therefore, was intended to cause us to LIVE a life of power right now.
·    Think of all the human years that Christians have lived before they died with actually very few of them truly living all the Life that the cross provided for them to live.

So the book of Romans is such a precious book of the Bible, since it really throws living life in power right into the forefront.

When we read the Bible, we often do not let it sink into our spirits and really transfer truth there.
·    Like this passage in John 6.
·    Living by Jesus.

John 6:(57)  As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

Religion is where a person merely goes to a church somewhere and gets a lot of ideas of spiritual things but nothing ever really changes in their day to day lives.
·    Other than going to church and professing a certain religion, we can carry on like people who do not belong to our religion carry on everyday.
·    No real difference.
·    We can live life the way someone who does not know God lives it.
·    Let’s have more than religion.

Jesus spoke of living by Him the way He lived by the Father.
·    This referred to our everyday lives!
·    Life in general.
·    He even said He came that we might have LIFE, but we know that is not something we receive on go like everyone else who does not even know God goes on in their lives.
·    It is clarified by statements like this in John 6.
·    It is LIVING in general.

How did Jesus LIVE by the Father?

John 5:19 KJV  Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

John 8:28 KJV  Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

John 10:38 KJV  But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.

John 14:10 KJV  Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.


Paul spoke of DYING in trying to serve the Lord.

Romans 7:8-11 MKJV  But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all kinds of lust. For apart from law sin was dead.  (9)  For I was alive without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.  (10)  And the commandment, which was to life, was found to be death to me.  (11)  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.

Realize what Paul said.
·    Seeking to serve God by the letter of the Law caused him to DIE.

Paul just finished speaking of living by the oldness of the letter as opposed the newness of the Spirit.

Romans 7:6 MKJV  But now we having been set free from the Law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

Sin revived and caused Paul to die.

Romans 7:17-18 KJV  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  (18)  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Sin was IN HIS FLESH.
·    It revived and caused him to die.

And it was in this state of death that he wrote these powerful words.
·    As you read these verses keep in mind that Paul said SIN WAS IN HIS FLESH.

While we were studying Romans 8:11-14, I missed something in Romans 8:10, and just realized it this week.

Romans 8:10-13 Complete Apostles' Bible  (10)  But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  (11)  But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit indwelling in you.  (12)  Therefore, brothers, we are debtors--not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  (13)  For if you live according to the flesh you shall die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.

Romans 6:3-4 said we ourselves died with Jesus and are resurrected with Him.
·    But God wants us to go further than existing as resurrected people.
·    He wants us TO LIVE a resurrection life.
·    WE are resurrected.
·    But OUR BODIES ARE DEAD.
·    In other words, the parts of us that WE LIVE our LIVES WITH are not caught up with ourselves in actions in everyday life.
·    WE are alive from the dead, BUT BODIES MAY STILL BE DEAD and need to be GIVEN LIFE.

Jesus said HE LIVED by the Father, and we are meant to LIVE BY JESUS.

He said that our positions may be in Christ, but nevertheless our bodies are still considered to be in a state of DEATH due to sin.
·    Paul said HE DIED due to sin earlier on in Chapter 7.
·    The body is therefore DEAD because of sin.
·    The medium through which we LIVE OUR LIVES is dead while we ourselves are alive from the dead.
·    But the Spirit of God is to be OUR MEANS OF LIFE so far as our bodies, or what we manifest through, are concerned.
·    Jesus said I AM THE LIFE!
·    The Spirit of God takes our dead bodies and MAKES THEM ALIVE.
·    QUICKENS THEM.
·    In other words, energizes us to DO RIGHTEOUS THINGS.
·    It is the unrighteousness things that caused our bodies to DIE.

The Spirit puts to death the practices of the body.

Jesus spoke of manifesting works by the Father causing them to occur through Him.
·    Likewise, notice Paul spoke of the Spirit killing the deeds of the body that that “YOU WILL LIVE.”
·    Living is caused by killing the deeds of the body through the Spirit.
·    We are alive from the dead but we need to LIVE that life now.
·    It needs to come through in our bodies and how we behave.
·    The works of the flesh listed in Gal 5 speak about things like adultery, fornication, anger and wrath, etc.

Galatians 5:19-21 MKJV  Now the works of the flesh are clearly revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness,  (20)  idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, fightings, jealousies, angers, rivalries, divisions, heresies,  (21)  envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revelings, and things like these; of which I tell you before, as I also said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

So, entering the GARDEN OF EDEN spiritually involves quashing out works of the flesh.
·    We are not in the KINGDOM when these things occur.
·    No wonder Jesus said Depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of INIQUITY, when they sought to ENTER THE KINGDOM.

·    People live their lives with these problems.
·    But the sons of God are not supposed to.
·    That is why Paul spoke of the Spirit empowering us to kill these works and then speaks of all of that by saying…

The Garden is for PEOPLE WHO EAT FRUIT OF LIFE.

If living by Jesus gives Life, and Paul said we live when the Spirit kills the works of the flesh in our lives, then we are not EATING OF HIM if we are committing works of the flesh.
·    We are not LIVING BY HIM like we should be.

Romans 8:14 KJV  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

The life the sons of God are expected to live is all that Paul just described.
·    This is clearly the same LIFE that Jesus pointed to when He spoke of our need to LIVE BY HIM as He lived by the Father when He spoke of HIS BLOOD AND HIS BODY that were food and drink to us.
So while we are committing works of the flesh we are in a state of DEATH as far as God is concerned.
·    No DEATH can exist in the HIS KINGDOM or IN HIS GARDEN.
·    It was because Adam would return to the ground and die that the Lord removed from the Garden due to sin.
That is why we read:

Ephesians 2:1-6 MKJV  And He has made you alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins,  (2)  in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience; 

Then He talks about the practices of the flesh.

(3)  among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 

Those things caused us to be DEAD.

(4)  But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us  (5)  (even when we were dead in sins) has made us alive together with Christ (by grace you are saved),  (6)  and has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,

HOW ALIVE ARE WE?

Romans 6:13 MKJV  Do not yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God, as one alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.


Coming to God as people alive from the dead is coming to Him with the awareness that  His crucifixion, WHERE HIS BODY AND BLOOD WERE GIVEN, counted as OUR CRUCIFIXIONS, so that we resurrected with Him from the dead.
·    That is LIVING BY HIS BLOOD AND BODY!
·    That is living by SON as the SON lived by the Father.
·    When you can come to God IN THAT MANNER every day and obey Romans 6:13, YOU ARE LIVING BY JESUS.
·    And He will surely put to death the deeds of the body that cause our bodies to be as good as DEAD to God.