BUSY BEES?

"Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On Him God the Father has placed His seal of approval. Then they asked Him (Jesus), "What must we DO to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent."' - John 6:27-29

Have you ever observed an active beehive? As a colony, bees can be found working 24 hours a day! In our old house, an exterminator discovered that thousands upon thousands of yellow jackets built an enormous nest inside our bedroom wall which was the length of the entire room. Talk about busy! Thanks to our exterminators heroics the hive was extinguished and we never "felt" that colony of bees again. Ouch!

Similarly as Christians it's so easy to get too "busy for God." In fact, we make quite a lot of noise buzzing around the hive. However, is what we're 'doing' being done in our own ability (self-righteousness) or His ability? In John 6, Jesus deals with this notion. It's natural to want to "do for God," but if we don't allow His Spirit room to complete the actual work in us and through us we ultimately find that He isn't in any of it. That's where agenda's, church drama, self-righteousness, and pride slither in. Do we actually trust Christ to do HIS work in and through us or are we too busy doing it "for Him" so He's shut out of His own Kingdom's work? Sounds paradoxical but it's true in many cases within Biblical Christendom which is one of the reasons why the Church is so weak in America. We love our D.I.Y. projects!

The only righteousness that God recognizes is His own. Therefore, as one preacher put it, "the work of God is our living faith in the adequacy of the One who is IN us, which releases His divine action THROUGH us." This summarizes what Jesus is getting at in John 6. Believers, we must hear His Words loud and clear. If we spend all of our energy "working for God" we'll be wasting precious time. In these crazy times there's no longer anymore time to waste. As Christ's imanent return gets closer, all of our efforts must be done in complete dependence on Him (not us) or it will spoil like 2 month old yogurt found in the depths of your refrigerator.

In John 15 Jesus says "without Me you can do NOTHING." Jesus did not offer a suggestion but instead a factual assertion. Do you have time to believe it, or are you too busy?