“And they said to Him, 'We have here only five loaves and two fish.'
He said, 'Bring them here to Me.'"
Matthew 14:17–18 (NKJV)
A Task
The day had been long and the crowd was immense. Upward of 15,000 people had followed Jesus out into the wilderness and He had spent the day teaching them. But even spiritual seekers need physical food so the disciples encouraged Jesus to send them away so they could go to the nearest drive-thru and get a burger on the way home.
But their way wasn’t Jesus’ way. Instead of sending the crowd away to find food, Jesus told the disciples to feed them. To their credit, the disciples didn’t say: “Are you crazy? We can’t feed these folks!” Instead, they presented the size of the problem and their lack of resources to Jesus because they thought He must not be fully comprehending the scope of the situation.
They read the treasurer’s report, listed their resources of a few loaves and a couple of fish, and said, see Lord, “…what are they among so many?” But they failed to list their greatest resource: Jesus Himself.
A Test
We so often do the same: we compare the need to what we have and say, “Impossible,” because we neglect to include the One for whom NOTHING is impossible. Jesus said, “You feed them,” as a test to see if those twelve men had learned anything about Him.
I believe Jesus presented a humanly impossible task desiring for one of those men to say, “We can’t feed these people Lord, but You can. Here is what we have. What would you have us do?”
A Truth
My brothers, we may consider what is in our hands as something that is small and won’t do much to meet the great need that we see around us. And the need is real: Jesus calls on us to provide for our families, to support the ministries of His church, to save to meet future needs that we can and can’t see coming, and, yes, even pay taxes.
We can look at what we have and say, “What is this among so many?” But we have a heavenly Father Who promised to meet the needs of His children. Don’t just count the fish and loaves; always put God’s power (omnipotent), God’s possessions (infinite), and God’s wisdom (omniscient) down first as the greatest and best of your resources.
Ask God to grant wisdom in where, when, and how to give, invest, and save. Seek and heed the biblical counsel of godly men and women whom the Lord allows into your life.
But most importantly, give everything you have to Jesus, follow His commands, and watch what He does with it. The disciples thought there wasn’t enough and each one of them wound up with a basket full. You may not wind up with a basket full but God promises there will be enough.
RALI on brothers.
Mike Book
MD5 Facilitator
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