John 6:14-15 : When therefore the people saw the sign which Jesus did, they said, “This is truly the prophet who comes into the world.” Jesus therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

This record is evidence that the common people realized who Jesus was. Remember, in post called “The Accusation of Moses”, I explained that Moses predicted that a prophet would rise up. This is apparently Jesus and the people realized it but the religious leaders either didn’t or were not willing to accept it. I believe that the religious leaders were just unwilling to accept the One God sent. This will be even more evident later.

The people didn’t respond well to the discovery. They were about to force Him into being king, so Jesus, knowing what He actually was supposed to be doing, took off to the mountain.

Once again, Jesus had to pay close attention to God’s will and not to His circumstances. If He would have assumed that things were going so well that God must really want Him to become king today and avoided the true duty that God had for Him, it would have ruined God’s true plan. Jesus was in tune with His father’s will. He wanted to do what His father wanted Him to do. He was in agreement. There was only one thing that He didn’t wan’t to do (become sin and be crushed by His Father) and He did that anyway. Lord willing, I will write about that another time.

In order for love to be love and not duty, we have to want to go God’s direction. This is a point that is very easy to miss. It’s easy to focus only on the work we must do for God and forget that He wants our hearts to be in it.

Revelation 2:2-4 : “I know your works, and your toil and perseverance, and that you can’t tolerate evil men, and have tested those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and found them false. You have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you left your first love.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 : If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is not possible without staying connected to Jesus. Just as I mentioned yesterday, without Him we cannot do anything. We may think we are doing something, but we will probably only be “going through the motions.”