Today I woke up with a hymn on my heart. Have you ever done that? As I reflect
back on my thoughts prior to going to sleep, they didn't have anything to
do with this hymn, so I got out my hymnal this morning and read the song all
the way through and it really blessed my heart! It is called "Break Thou The
Bread Of Life"....
Break Thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me,
As Thou didst break the loaves beside the sea.
Beyond the sacred page, I seek thee, Lord,
My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word.
Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord, to me, to me,
As Thou didst bless the bread by Galilee.
Then shall all bondage cease, all fetters fall,
And I shall find my peace, my all in all.
Thou art the bread of life, O Lord, to me,
Thy holy Word the truth that saveth me.
Give me to eat and live, with Thee above,
Teach me to love Thy truth, For Thou art love.
O send Thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me,
That He may touch my eyes and make me see.
Show me the truth concealed within Thy Word,
And in Thy book revealed I see the Lord.
There's just nothing like those old hymns, amen? They always have such meaningful
words to digest and ponder. I love to gobble them up.... Speaking of eating,
at what kind of restaurants do you like to eat? I personally like those with
a cozy atmosphere and of course, plenty of good food to choose from. How many
of you remember ever going to a restaurant where the portions served were
skimpy? It's a bit disturbing, amen? We usually don't forget such a thing
and purpose in our hearts that we will never go back to THAT place.... Yes,
we humans like being assured that when we are hungry we are going to walk
away from the table full. The task of preparing adequate amounts of food for
a hungry family can be overwhelming at times, especially with teen-agers in
the house! Today, in keeping with this train of thought, I want to look at
the feeding of the five thousand, the breaking of the bread of life on the
sea of Galilee...
Matthew 14:15-16, "And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying,
This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away,
that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals. But Jesus
said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat."
After all those who came to Christ were healed by Him, the disciples found
they were now faced with the responsibility of the hunger of the crowd. It
is easy to see by the comments they made to Jesus, that they found this an
overwhelming situation! In looking at things with their own eyes, they came
to the conclusion that nothing could be done about the situation, for the
hour was late and the food supply inadequate. As a matter of fact, the disciples
wanted nothing more than for these people to basically go away and find food
for themselves.... What is Jesus response to their underlying attitude and
comments to Him? He firmly stated that the crowd need not depart. As far as
the Lord was concerned, sending them away was not necessary, for it was not
the answer to the problem they were faced with! He then commanded these men
to take on the task of feeding the multitude.... You see ladies, Jesus was
not going to let His disciples run from the size of this job, no matter how
many excuses they gave Him...
"And they say unto Him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes."
How like us this response is to the Lord's commands, amen? He gives us a job
to do and we consider our own human resources before we consider Him! We take
inventory of our own strength and forget the power of God.... Do you ever
feel like the disciples when you realize you've been given the enormous responsibility
of spiritually feeding others? Do you respond to the Lord and say, "But I
don't know enough of the Bible yet... I only have five loaves of information
under my belt and maybe two fishes worth of understanding..." And then you
want the "hungry" to go away so you can escape the weighty responsibility
of feeding the flock.....
You know what the Lord Jesus Christ was doing here, ladies? Encouraging the
disciples to start with what they had! Many of God's people tend to feel like
it's not the right time or the right place to share their "loaves and fish"
as they look at their "spiritual food supply" and consider it inadequate for
use in feeding a large crowd. They become afraid or frustrated about the overwhelming
responsibility of "breaking bread" to share with others and end up wishing
people would just go away! But Jesus said they need not depart....
When preparing my lessons to teach the ladies at church on Sundays, I tend
to think the way the disciples did.... "Lord, the crowd is big, the hunger
pains are evident on their faces, how can I possibly feed each and every one
of them adequately??" I'll admit too, that when I sit down at my computer
to type out the "Rise and Shine" devotional to you ladies, I consider the
size of this crowd and the needs of your hearts and feel very overwhelmed
at how big it has become! It didn't overwhelm me when it was a small crowd
I was writing to, but the Lord has enlarged the audience and still places
upon me the responsibility of "Give YE them to eat." I felt like I had enough
food for a small group, but a large one, Lord?! How can I possibly satisfy
everyone??"
Think about it for a moment.... Those of you who receive Rise and Shine are
a very diverse group of ladies! Some of you are in the ministry as pastor's
wives or missionaries, some of you are newly saved, some of you aren't in
church that often or even at all, some of you I have never met, yet you have
very heavy burdens that you have shared with me via e-mail, some of you I
know personally and see on a weekly basis and know what you struggle with,
some of you are married and some are single, some of you have children, some
of you do not, some are teen-agers and some are middle age and older, some
are handicapped and some are not etc. How do you possibly feed a crowd composed
of such diverse hunger pains with your meager five loaves and two fishes??
And today, when I read verse 18, the answer from the Lord Jesus' lips really
blessed my heart.....
"Bring them hither to me."
Thank you Lord!! What a great comfort and relief!! Ladies, it is HIS divine
ability to multiply my small supply that gets the crowd fed! No matter what
gift or ability you and I may have, no matter how insignificant we may think
it is in comparison to the demands of the hour, it need only be given to the
Lord to become enough! What a great God we serve, amen? What freedom to be
ourselves this brings to the table in offering our bread to others! We don't
need to fearfully compare the size of our loaf of bread and quantity of fish
with the size of the appetite of folks in attendance! It is God's blessing
upon it that makes it enough to fill and nourish the crowd! What protection
from becoming puffed up this affords us as well... Gone is the tendency to
compare our loaves of bread amongst ourselves - "Well, MY bread is whole wheat
and more nutritious for the people while YOURS is only white, therefore Jesus
will want mine and not yours!" Well, I made MY bread from scratch, YOU cheated
and used a bread machine so He is going to prefer mine!" Ladies, I don't care
who you are or where you came from or even how long you've been saved - NOBODY'S
bread and fish will satisfy unless it is first consecrated to the Lord and
blessed by Him! We are the ones who get hung up on personal inadequacies -
but the Lord never does! Little is much when God is in it... The Lord cares
only that you and I bring what little we may have to Him first, so He can
bless and multiply it, thereby consecrating it to Him and His work! How simple!
We don't have to wait until we have 18 years of Bible instruction poured into
us before we break the bread of life with others... We don't have to be intimidated
by comparing the size of the crowd with the size of our resources either!
In Christ, we CAN meet the need of the hour....
Verses 19-20, "And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and
took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed,
and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the
multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the
fragments that remained twelve baskets full."
How precious of the Lord to take the tired, hungry crowd and seat them on
the soft, cool grass.... Notice that those who were sitting were those who
were fed! Notice too, Christ's example before the disciples in teaching them
how to serve others properly.... He showed them to first look heavenward for
a blessing upon their service! After Jesus prayed, He turned around and gave
the disciples the bread in perfect size portions to carry out the task of
serving the multitude themselves - that very thing they wanted to run from
initially! What a lesson they learned that day...
I want you to notice too, that there were fragments that remained after all
had eaten and were full... What a picture of the power of God this is as He
multiplies our supply of bread and fish in abundance!! The leftovers were
not discarded but saved for future nourishment... No doubt there were included
in those twelve baskets, fragments of food that were refused or too much to
digest by those in attendance. Ladies, if we are going to trust the Lord with
our loaves and fishes BEFORE we share them, we are going to also have to trust
our loaves and fishes to Him AFTER we share them, amen? Otherwise, if you
don't witness the crowd gobbling up your bread, you may not share anymore!
Consider how it feels when you make something special and your family doesn't
eat it, or take second helpings... Consider how it feels when you bring something
to potluck and your dish is the only one left that no one ate of.... We have
a tendency to think to ourselves, "I won't do that again!" Be careful that
you aren't looking for others to love your bread and fish so much that you
set yourself up for a fall... Keep your focus heavenward and be a good steward
of the fragments that remain, plan on sharing again and again!
In closing, the most important thought of all takes us right back to the hymn
I woke up with on my heart today. We need to be opening up the Word of God
daily - it needs to be our favorite place to eat! The supply of spiritual
food is bountiful there, and it is a buffet that never runs empty for it's
"all-you-can-eat"! The Lord could have fed those five thousand Himself in
less than five minutes, but He chose to work through the disciples and allow
them to be the givers or distributors of the food. He wants you and I today
to have that same opportunity. However, we'll have to get that bread from
His Word, the bread of life... In verse 15 of Mt. 34, Jesus asks, "...How
many loaves have ye?" He is asking that of you and I as well.... How many
loaves, dear lady? Are you and I gathering the ingredients by daily searching
His Word so that we are acquiring some food to share? Give thanks for the
loaves He has blessed you with, bring them hither to Him, then break them
and share them with others, sending each one away full! What a satisfying
ministry....
God Bless,
Pam
Isaiah 60:1&2
Copyright 2000 Pamela A. Iannello
