Living Out the Life of Christ

11th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines
August 15, 2021

Readings: Proverbs 9:1-6
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:53-59

The principles of God are not based on things that are earthly. They are based on things spiritual. We’ve got to see things spiritually if we are to understand God’s principles. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life. He spoke about this in Capernaum because He wanted the people to know God. The people were debating, “how can we eat His flesh?” They were not aware that Christ was referring to His life and not in material terms.

Proverbs 9:5 “Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.”

Ephesians 5: 18-20 … but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In all things we should be grateful. He came for one purpose, and that is to fulfill God’s will by living out the life.

1 John 4:9 “This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.”

People think that certain things will bring them security. Not realizing that when they lose these things, they end up with nothing. But with God, you never lose.

1 John 4:17 By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world.

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.

We lack in nothing. We strive for things in this world to give us security when God has given us everything.

Jesus becomes bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh. He identifies with us. He has undergone every temptation that man has ever gone through and yet He never succumbed to any of these. He came to fulfill the will of God. We are being restored to God. We should feed on the thought of His manhood until our manhood becomes His. We are to be in dominion. We are to meditate on who we are in Him even if we do not feel or sense it. We must make His life to be the center of ours – not self- seeking but building others. If you have a book on the shelf about a great man but that book just sits on the shelf, it will do you no good. But if you take the book off the shelf and start reading it and apply the lessons then it becomes useful.

To eat His flesh and drink His blood means we are to feed our soul and mind with His humanity so that we become like Christ. The Eucharist is more than just partaking of His body and blood – It is consuming His life; walking in the manner by which He walked, and living out His life.

Hebrews 2:14 “For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”

We are to hunger and thirst for righteousness. We are to delight in Him. It should be His life we want to copy. He is our strength, our all in all. He is our life. He is our everything.
John 6:53 Jesus said to them, “very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” If we don’t walk according to His life, we have no life. We’ve got to live out the Eucharist, applying His principles in our lives.

1 John 2:6 Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked. Christ gives us something that the world cannot give.

1 Peter 2:21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you may follow in His footsteps.

We can only truly enjoy the provisions when we are living according to His purpose and plan. Why do we wonder why we are frustrated? Because we are not living the life. Christ came to show us the way.

“Be fruitful and multiply, and subdue the earth.”

Even in the midst of the storm, we can overcome. We need to focus on the life He has given to us. Being thankful and trying our best to be what He wants us to be.
It’s time to awaken and put into practice the powerful things He has taught us.