May 15, 2026, 3:00 PM
Greetings in Christ and I pray you've had a good week so far.
This week at our Wednesday night Bible study, we looked at the encounter of Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler (Mark 10:17-31). This young man had almost everything a person could want. But He didn't have the peace of God that comes with the promise of eternal life. And he wanted to "acquire" or "earn" that from Jesus.
The man, like many people Jesus encountered, had something conspicuously missing in their lives.
This man had lots of things, but he did not have anything that could completely satisfy him.
Today, many of us are just like this. Nearly everything in today’s culture tells us that we need more and more STUFF. We need MONEY and WEALTH. We need STATUS and ACHIEVEMENTS to be truly fulfilled and satisfied. Sadly, many people spend their entire lifetime pursuing those things and in the end they come away from it all feeling EMPTY and UNSATISFIED.
Jesus, however, said that He came to offer us something different. Jesus declared in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
Pastor/writer Nicky Gumbel expresses it well, writing, "Physical bread is not enough. Material things alone do not satisfy. Money, homes, cars, success and even human relationships do not satisfy our desire for ultimate purpose in life. The bread that does satisfy is the 'bread of life.' This is not a commodity that Jesus supplies. He (Jesus) is the gift and the giver."
Listen to what Jesus goes on to say in John 6:47-51: "Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
What an honor it is to "meet" with Jesus every first day of the week through the sacrament of Communion! Let's NEVER take that for granted.
This coming Sunday we will continue in our sermon series on the Godly Wisdom found in the book of Proverbs. I will be preaching a message called, "Gateway to the Good Life."
Whether we know it or not, we're all striving for some shape or form of that "American Dream" or "The Good Life."
Wikipedia says "The Good Life" is a philosophical term for the life that one would like to live, originally associated with Aristotle. Everyone from philosophers to your common, everyday people has his or her own idea of what "The Good Life" is or looks like.
But what does that Bible say about it? What would God's word tell us that a truly "Good Life" would look like? Come and find out more this Sunday!
I hope and pray we'll see you at First Christian Church this coming Sunday (05.17.26)! Until then...
God Bless,
Greg Herriford
