Jesus, the Bread of Life, reprise

I want to share one final insight before I move away from the subject of Christian communion.  

Yesterday morning, I was chatting with one of my group facilitators who is also a brother in Christ.  This young man has come up out of a past of drugs and crime and is now serving the Lord from his heart with the help of the Holy Spirit.  He carries a small Bible around with him and always has timely insights.  So as is my habit, I came up to him before group and asked him: 

"So... what's the Word for today?"  

He opened his Bible to John 6:53-58.  It was the same passage I was just studying, where Jesus offered us His flesh to eat as the Bread of Life.  I laughed out loud.  

It turns out he was doing a study on communion, too, and pointed out a passage that really hit home with me.  It was Psalm 121, yet another passage I keep coming back to but didn't incorporate in my last post:

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills--

From whence comes my help?  

My help comes from the Lord, 

Who made heaven and earth. 

He will not allow your foot to be moved; 

He who keeps you will not slumber. 

Behold, he who keeps Israel 

Shall neither slumber nor sleep. 

The Lord is your keeper; 

The Lord is your shade at your right hand. 

The sun shall not strike you by day, 

Nor the moon by night. 

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; 

He shall preserve your soul. 

The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in

From this time forth, and even forevermore.

Divine intervention into the Christian life surprises many.  I myself, when I was really young and still on the fence about serving God with my life, tended to laugh at those who lived their lives fully expectant of God's grace.  It seemed that they lived, not for what they could figure out in life, but for what God wanted to teach them.  

As I'm going through my daily life now, I'm no longer so proud as to believe that I don't need help.  In order for me to live a holy life--a superhuman requirement!--I need not just a little of God's help, but ALL of His help that's available.  I need the Lord to be the shade at my right hand, when I come in and when I go out, when I wake and when I sleep, now and forevermore.  This 24/7 presence of God that the Psalm offers is more than the occasional angel-sighting or heavenly vision or sign boasted by those who claim to be "spiritual."  

For me, God's presence is a daily necessity.  

Jesus Christ is my daily bread: not a one-time feast, but my sustenance for all time.  Unless I eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, I have no life in me.  

It is only He who is able to keep my feet from stumbling and to present me faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.  To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.  Amen!