Good morning. Jesus fed the 5,000. It was miraculous, and it was wonderful, and the people who were blessed that day were overcome with… what would you expect? Overcome with thanksgiving? Overcome with love for Jesus? Overcome with amazement that the power of God was being displayed in their midst?
The people that were blessed, over 5,000 men and who knows how many women and children, were overcome with… the desire to have more. Jesus knew it, and Jesus told them so: Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the miracles I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” John 6:26-27
Those who heard Him fixated on this: Do not work for that, work for this... It is not hard to imagine them nodding their heads. “Yes”, they may have thought, “it is not unexpected or unreasonable that we should have to work for the blessing of food. After all, work is the nature of our lives. Hard, backbreaking work from dawn to dusk day after day is what we are used to doing.”
The question they asked Him in response to what He said was this: Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” John 6:28 I think they were saying, “Okay then, we need to work for the blessings. No problem, that is expected. But what kind of work? Tell us what we have to do, and we will get busy.”
What kind of work does the Lord require? Would God ask that they build a road, or a church building, or farm more land to give Him some sort of income? “What kind of work does the Father ask of us?” It doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable question. But Jesus’ answer was not what they expected, not at all: Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:29
Has Jesus’ statement changed for us? No, not at all. The task at hand is the same now as it was then, to believe in Jesus. To be sure, believing in Jesus is not merely believing in his existence. No, James 2:19 tells us that even the demons believe in the existence of Jesus, and they shudder at the truth of it.
No, believing in Jesus means loving Him. Believing in Jesus means trusting Him. Trusting Him means that we believe and understand that to yield our lives to His will is going to bring about the blessings we need and desire. Therefore, believing in Jesus means that we obey what He commands. So, what does that mean for us?