When we read that Jesus fed 4,000 people from a few loaves, it almost get’s lost in the myriad of other miracles. But there are some powerful lessons that we can learn from this encounter.
For instance, Jesus had compassion. Sometimes I am asked “does Jesus care about what’s going on in my life?” and the answer is “yes”. Jesus cares. if you’re hungry, He feels it. If you are grieving, He feels it. Jesus knows and cares about what is happening to you. Secondly, Jesus uses what the disciples have found in the crowd. 7 loaves among 4,000 people isn’t much. I wonder if they had started marking up the price on food yet… Anyway, the point is that someone has to give up what they have so that it can be blessed to be much more effective. Jesus could make bread out of thin air…but He doesn’t. I don’t know why, He just doesn’t. So consider what it is that you have, and how much more effective it could be if you gave it to Jesus. A few hours of your time, maybe the use of your talents, or perhaps some resources or material goods that you have been saving for a rainy day. If you give those things to the Lord, He will use them to accomplish much more than you ever could. Sure, you won’t get to say where and how God is going to bless it, but who cares? Have you ever stopped to think about how you would feel if you had been the person who had given Jesus the loaves? What a powerful experience that would have been! Then, there is the lesson of the disciples who had to go looking for the bread. Jesus didn’t find the bread himself, He asked the disciples to find it, and then they handed it out. Miracles involve disciples, and you should consider yourself blessed to be invited by God to be a part of what He is doing. Number four: The crowd didn’t come to listen to Jesus empty handed. Verse 2 says they have “nothing left” to eat. They didn’t come looking for a handout, the time they got to spend with Jesus was longer than they anticipated…and some of them had come a long way. I don’t see anyone in the crowd asking Jesus to feed them either. I think the crowd was more interested in hearing from and being with Jesus than they were in getting something to eat. In this case, Jesus has compassion on people who have expended all their own resources, and are still in need.
On the other hand, you have the Pharisees. They don’t want to sit and listen to Jesus. They simply want to see a miracle. They haven’t used up their food, but they are calling on Jesus to make more…or do something else…more for their entertainment than necessity. As you might expect, they receive nothing but scorn from Jesus.
On a different thought: I wonder why the blind man wasn’t to go back into the village? And, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the first thing you ever could see clearly was the face of Jesus? Some day our eyes are going to open in heaven and that’s going to be us! Like people waking up from a deep sleep we are going to gaze upon the face of the one to whom we have prayed and studied about for years. “What a day that will be, when my Jesus I shall see. When I look upon His face, the one who saved me by His grace…”
Because of what we are studying in church right now, verse 34 leaps out at me. “Turn from your selfish ways”. Self is the enemy of righteousness. It is my original “self” or “nature” that is in opposition to the new nature I have chosen. The more I surrender self and give control over to Jesus the more like Him I become. Becoming like Jesus is the goal. And in order for that to happen, what “I” want has to be crucified. In fact, once I surrender myself to Christ, I am filled with His presence, and then the desires I have are the very things that Jesus wants to do. So in a manner of speaking, I can have everything I ever wanted, as soon as I surrender everything I have now.
Thinking aloud, and praying for the motivation to surrender completely,
PR