Daily Archives: October 6, 2011

 

Today I’m reprinting the daily devotional from Intouch in it’s entirety.  I felt this entry from my friend Charles Stanley was just to powerful to change in any way.

 

John 6

Jesus Feeds Five Thousand

 ¹ After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. ² A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. ³ Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. ⁴ (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) ⁵ Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” ⁶He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.

 ⁷ Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!”

 ⁸ Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. ⁹ “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”

 ¹⁰ “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) ¹¹ Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. ¹² After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” ¹³ So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.

 ¹⁴ When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!”

 

God’s Word is a treasure for many reasons—one being that it’s so practical. The stories and principles found in the Gospels are just as applicable today as they were in Jesus’ day. We’ve all experienced times when our backs are to the wall, our problem seems to have no solution, and we don’t know what to do. When that happens, we need to remember that impossible situations are opportunities for the Lord to teach us valuable lessons that we’d never learn any other way.

 

God’s supremacy trumps human resources. When Jesus asked, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?” (v. 5), Philip quickly recognized his own inadequacy. Although Christ knew all along what He would do, He was teaching His disciples that the perfect plan and the power to implement it come only from God, not from human solutions and resources.

 

The Lord often requires our participation. Even though Christ could have spoken bread into existence, He chose to use people to achieve His purpose. Andrew scouted around for food, a young boy gave up his small lunch, and the disciples organized the crowd and distributed the food Jesus handed them. Each step required trust and obedience, especially since Christ’s method seemed so illogical.

 

God knows how to solve your problem, but He may choose to require your cooperation, possibly even asking you to do something that seems unreasonable. But whenever we yield our flawed solutions and meager resources to Him and step out in obedience, He does great things in us and through us.

 

*Postscript, I’ve learned in my own life the truth in that last paragraph, God does know how to solve our problems and he may well choose have us be a part of that solution, and when He asks you to do something that seems unreasonable, remember what He could do with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish!

 

the pilgrim

 

*Photo Note:  Nikon D7000 with the 24-120 AF-S VR.