In the gospel of John, Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you…..”. In some of the older translations, this is worded, “You seek me because….”.
Food in the belly is a powerful motivator, and fear of no food in the belly is also.
Jesus was, here, it seems to me, trying to help this group purify their motivation. It is good to be near Jesus, no matter the motivation, but if we are taking our cues from our lower nature, how are we to access the higher things that the Lord wants to give to us?
Here He is saying, you are following me around because I took care of your hunger for natural food. If you read on, you can see that He illuminates a better way to go about this. He says, spend your energies for seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. He is showing them (and us) that we can become too naturally focused and get (even) our motivation to seek the Lord from carnal motivators. But if we do this, we are going to miss the GREAT opportunity that is present in this setting – eternal life. Continue reading “Motivation”
