Dear Friends,

One of the things I have to watch out for because of neuropathy due to diabetes is poor balance and the danger of falling. The Bible is God’s way of keeping us balanced spiritually. Today’s devotional explains. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

• John 6:53-71 (ESV)

  53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread[a] the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus[b] said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

  The Words of Eternal Life
  60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

  66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

“There were some who stumbled at the doctrine of Christ in his own day. He had a number of followers who kept with him up to a certain point; but when the Savior said, ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,’ they went back, and walked no more with him. They could not understand what he meant, and they murmured, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So, being staggered and stumbled at the depth of this great mystery, they turned aside, and walked no more with him. Beloved, we want God so to uphold us and guard us that, whatever the teaching of his Holy Word may be, we shall receive it without a demur. I know that there are some Christian people who stumble at one doctrine, especially if they hear somebody denounce it; and there are others who are staggered at another doctrine, because they have met some very wise man, who knows better than the Word of God, and says that it cannot be true. In these days, there is very great liability to this kind of stumbling, especially among Christians who do not read their Bibles much; and I am sorry to say that there are plenty of such Christians. They read magazines, or perhaps works of fiction, rather than the sure Word of God; and they are thus easily caught in the snare of the fowler. Many professing Christians do not know what God’s Word really teaches, so they are not established in the faith; they do not know even the elements of the doctrines of Christ, they have not examined the immutable foundations of the faith, and they are staggered. And truly, the mysteries of the kingdom are so deep, and the teachings of Christ are so contrary to the reasonings of flesh and blood, that we need not wonder if some are stumbled. Let us cry to him who is able to guard us from stumbling that, with steady step, we may press on in the way of life, and never be ashamed of truth, lest truth should be ashamed of us. Let us believe what the Bible says, however difficult the believing may be, because God has said it. This should ever stand for us as the grand master-argument, not the reasonableness of the doctrine, not because it commends itself to our judgment, but the fact that God hath said it; that ends all debate.” [Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXIX, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1893), p. 87-88]