Most of us have witnessed stories that included a damaged ship of some type losing its full capabilities and forcing its occupants to choose which systems, possessions, and people were most important to keep (at the cost of forsaking all others). Choices were food or water, force-fields or cannons, offensive or defensive capabilities, the cook or the captain. On occasion, a few survivors end up in a small cabin with the overhead lights turned off and only a short supply of air left.
Brother, there is a life support need greater than our last breath. Men need a reason to breath in the first place. Oxygen only matters to the man who has a reason to live. Many take their own lives each day because breathing means existing, and existence means pain. Multitudes currently live in a constant state of desperation, broken, hurting. Breathing does not cure loneliness or give us a reason to inhale one more time, live another moment, or care if we see another sunset. Oxygen, food, drink, clothing, shelter, and all other things we engage with, may lend us temporary hope and keep our physical bodies alive, but they simply represent a means to an end. We need more than these to sustain. Our souls yearn and thrash about within us gasping to know and be known. Oxygen is not enough.
We ask questions like, “Why am I here? Will anyone miss me when I am gone? Do I make a difference? Is this all there is? Does my life mean anything? What is real, and how do I know?” Questions create tension for answers, and the deepest questions of our hearts and minds cry out for a response. The places we go to get the answers to our questions should be reliable. If not, we run the risk of squandering our time, talents, and treasures. We risk wasting our lives when we miss the answers to our deepest questions. We are made for relationship. Our inner man hungers and thirsts for something only God can satisfy.
After Jesus fed the five thousand, many followed him to Capernaum. Some expected a hand-out of more free bread and fish. The adoring crowd showed up motivated by their appetites and what the miracle worker could do to keep them physically and economically safe (John 6:22-25 KJV). This is the way of the natural man. He would have us focus on our stomachs and other temporal things at the expense of neglecting the one thing we need more than oxygen. Jesus is the answer to our questions. He is the bread of life and fountain that will never run dry. He is our oxygen. He is our first and last hope.
God invites us into an intimate relationship with himself through His only begotten Son. We are invited to choose. We must accept God’s invitation to drink and eat the spiritual blood and body of Christ if we are to live a Kingdom life and experience the full joy of relationship with God (John 6:26-58 KJV). Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6 KJV).
After eating God’s bread of life and drinking deeply from His fountain, we are privileged to do two things. We get to both share the bread and water with others who are desperate for life, and we continue to partake ourselves (John 6:53-56 and 15:5 KJV). Jesus is the life support system our famished and gasping world needs. We need more than oxygen.
– Richard Harwood from RE:sist
