In John 6, Jesus exposes the motives of the crowds who were seeking him, namely because he miraculously provided food for them the day before in the feeding of the 5,000. In v.26, Jesus says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27 Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”

Coming to Christ in order to seek prosperity and comfort does not take faith at all. Denying ourselves pursuits with those motives is what faith is all about. It is natural and fleshy to only do things that promote and protect ourselves and our image. You might be familiar with how the account in John 6 progresses: Jesus describes himself as the true bread from heaven sent from God and a result of feeding the people words of life, they find his teaching too difficult to accept and walk away from him. As soon as they could no longer perceive any tangible benefit they could receive from Christ, they were out of there!

Christ is not about promoting the worship of ourselves and the advancement of our own desires. We cannot truly believe in Christ if we think otherwise. On the other hand, it is supernatural and spiritual to do things that promote Christ at an expense to ourselves. True faith is costly to ourselves, but true faith has great reward—to be a child of God and an heir of eternal life!