“A taste of Disneyland!” is how it was advertised – an amusement park that sat on top of a shopping mall in Korea. This was in the 1980’s when S. Korea was still a developing country. And not knowing any better, my teenage heart told me that it was the greatest amusement park I have seen!

Fast forward to 2013. I took my family to Disney World in Florida. We stayed for 4 days, walked for miles and miles, and still not get to see half the park! “A taste of Disneyland?” I thought back to that tiny tiny little park I remembered. “It wasn’t even a lick,” I thought.

It would be a horrible mistake to confuse a sign for the real thing. That would be akin to falling in love with a picture of a beautiful woman, not realizing that there is a real woman behind it! Or mistake a tiny playground in Korea for Disneyland!

Many disciples of Jesus made that foolish mistake. They followed Him because He gave them bread and healed their sick. But they were simply “signs.” The bread was to signify that He is the bread of life that sustains their very being. The healing was to signify that He is the restorer of all things diseased by their sins. And yet, these people focused on the sign more than the real thing.

So, in John 6, when Jesus tells them that it is He that they should want, and the reasons why they followed Him up to now were simply to be signs to point to Him, something amazing happens! They stopped following Jesus…

And today, if people are told that Jesus is not a means to an end but the end, many will stop following Jesus, too. When they realize that Jesus’ main purpose is not to give them health, wealth, and comfort, but Himself, they decline. And I’m afraid that many preachers and churches will not tell them that because they themselves are following the sign and not the real thing.

Pray for yourself and pray for me that we will not do so. Pray that emptiness will settle in quickly if we follow the world so that we will quickly fix our eyes upon the glory of Christ and not just on a sign of Him.

May He reveal Himself as He is to you and me. Amen!

PH