“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” That’s the only phrase I remember from that poem. We read it in high school and were taught that it had a double meaning. On the one hand, Ozymandias wrote it to terrify other kings into submission. On the other hand, it reminded people that even the mighty would fall.
In John 6:26-29, the text tells us that the Jews were seeking Jesus for physical food. He had just miraculously fed 5,000, so maybe He would feed them again. It seemed reasonable. That was the wrong sort of food to seek. They were valuing the physical over the spiritual. The true bread Who feeds for eternity should have been their goal.
Today, we should seek Jesus over anything else. If we concern ourselves with the spiritual, the physical things will sort themselves out. While some seek power, wealth, influence, beauty, or pleasure, those all lead to a dead-end at the grave. Instead, we should seek weakness, poverty, dependence, servanthood, and humility (Matthew 5:3-12). In the end, we want that end to extend eternally. We do that by dwelling on the spiritual while living in the physical. We seek Jesus because He gives the TRUE bread, and that gives us eternal life.
Are you living life like Ozymandias? What will you have to show for your labors 500 years from now? Seek the true bread. Don’t seek the dry, moldy, tasteless bread this world has to offer. Perhaps you already realize that your fortunes, great or small, will not last into eternity. If so, won’t you sit down with me over an open Bible and study these things together?
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
