life is a menu

From Kyle's sermon at Southeast on Sunday...

At a restaurant and in life...
What will satisfy? How does one decide?

-What others are having...
-What others think is best...
-What looks good... (I remember a comedian who had a great line on something that looks good in the menu but not so good in practice: "My compliments to your photographer...")

What are the results?
-disappointed
-settle for sub-optimal
-satisfied
-stuffed but not satisfied and cannot eat something better (here, Kyle talked about Fear Factor-- and all of the disgusting stuff that people had to eat to succeed)

The punchline from the primary text (in John 6) is that Jesus says "I AM the bread of life".

The offer is the same for us today. We can't afford this exquisite bread and yet it is offered to us, graciously, for free. The check is exorbitant but it's already been paid-- if we'll accept the free and wonderful meal.

A great verse on this is Isaiah 55:1-3a:

"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live..."

Three C.S. Lewis quotes come to mind:

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."