Good Evening! Todays Reading: Luke 9:10-17 Just a thought: In this text, we see the apostles returning from their short mission trip. They give Jesus a report on their mission and its back to the norm. The norm though meant being followed by crowds and more requests to be healed. The 12 must have been overwhelmed by the crowd. They came to Jesus asking him to send the crowds away. They reported that since they were in a remote place there was going to be difficulty in the crowds finding something to eat. Jesus responds to the apostles request by telling them to feed the crowds. The apostles find themselves in a bind. You see, they only had 5 loaves of bread and two fish. I wonder how the apostles felt. They had to be overwhelmed by the tremendous need and the lack of resources. Its a place that many churches find themselves in their communities. There are so many requests for needs to be met and so little resources to go around. WE find ourselves in churches saying, All we have is (FILL IN THE BLANK). I also wonder if Jesus was testing his apostles to see if they had finally realize who Jesus really was and what Jesus could do. The repeated storyline we continue to see throughout the gospel of Luke is one that shows the apostles inability to grasp the true power of Jesus. Once again, Jesus would amaze the crowds and his apostles. Jesus blesses the meager amount of food and it multiplies. The crowd of over 5000 (There were 5000 men so this number didnt include women or children) were fed and afterwards, there were 12 baskets of leftover food. Did you catch that... 12 baskets of leftovers. One for each apostle. The reading of this story doesnt erase the anxiety that we feel when we want to help a lot of people but we dont have enough resource. But what it can do is help us to see that even when we are low on resource, we can never lose sight that even when we are low on resource, Jesus is still present and He is able to make something out of nothing. It is the reason that instead of throwing our hands in the air in resignation, we should lift up our eyes to the Lord in prayer. Pray for his power to amaze. Pray for his sustenance to be provided. Pray for him to lead you toward a total reliance on him. We may find ourselves like the apostles, completely overwhelmed by the power of God and blessed. Whereas we are desiring to meet the needs of others, we come out on the other ice having our own needs being met.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 02:32:00 +0000
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