intimate presence

Friday August 21st, John 6: 53 But Jesus didn't give an inch. "Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. These words would have been very offensive to his hearers. The idea of eating flesh and being in contact with blood was an abomination and against all the holiness and cleanliness laws of the Hebrew people. All the safety nets we surround our life with, our rules, our customs, even many of our belief systems, they can be roadblocks that keep us from Christ. Making Christ the very essence of our being however, that is where life comes from. Being a Christian is less about doing, or a way of doing than it is about a way of being. It is about Christ being the very center of our life, our all in all. What rituals, beliefs, rules, customs get in the way of having Christ the center of life? If it does not fit into loving God and loving others, it is just a distraction. It is in the eating and the drinking of Christ’s body and blood that we intimately live out the presence of Christ within us, within ever cell, thought, idea, action and breath. It is in being conscious of this intimate presence that we find the life around us changed closer and closer to God’s will each and every day.