¹⁶Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."
¹⁷"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.
¹⁸"Bring them here to me," he said.

¹⁹And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.

²⁰They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

²¹The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

 

Commentary

Jesus took compassion on a multitude that had earnestly followed him far from the city into what was considered desert land. Having also followed Jesus, the disciples saw a condition arising where there would not be enough food to go around, not nearly enough. Every Christian will face this situation.  You will look into your hands and find that what you have is not enough, not nearly enough for what you need.  The word that describes this situation best is “lack”; you “lack” what you need. Seeing the insufficient amount, you will no doubt ask the same question that the disciples asked, “What is this among so many?”

What is $100 among a debt of thousands?  What is an individual’s effort when the job takes dozens to complete? What is a handful of mission workers among a large city’s population of non-believers?  Your answer will be determined by your realization of what Jesus is communicating to us in this bible story. 

Christians have faith in the most-high God and yet fail in this situation.  We’ve become so afraid of “lack” that we choose to limit our efforts or retreat from our missions altogether.  We send people away, just as the disciples urged Jesus to do.  We refuse to go forward or to do certain work, we scale down our scope. There are ministries that God is waiting to make prosperous but instead they are sitting on a back burner because the person God trusted with the vision is afraid of “lack”.  Some of us will not make a move until we are convinced our resources are sufficient enough. Instead of following our calling, we allow our resources to determine what we can and can’t do. Instead of having confidence in God, we look to draw confidence from the amount of money or contributors we have, or the amount of materials at our disposal.

Unfortunately, the only way for this type of assurance to last is to have unlimited resources.  No one on Earth can guarantee unlimited resources.  It’s been proven time after time all over the world.  The basic rule in the study of Economics is that resources will always be limited while wants and desires are potentially unlimited.  This has been taught from High School up to University campuses for decades.  Every living creature will face “lack”.  At some point, there will not be enough of what we need to do what we want.  The thing that separates us from the rest of the world, however, is knowing how to respond.

The bible records that Jesus knew this situation would arise and was interested in the disciple’s response before he revealed his own. Naturally, the disciples were judging the situation according to sight; it looked like this crowd would starve. But Jesus knew how to respond to “lack”.   He did not send any one away.  Instead he instructed the disciples to bring him what they had and then he offered it up to God.  That is the correct response to the situation of lack.  We must take what ever it is that God has given us, no matter how insufficient it appears to be, and offer it up to God with all our hearts.  One preacher put it this way: “If you look into your hands and what you see is not enough, then that is not your harvest, it’s seed.  You must plant your seed into anointed ground in order to receive your harvest. The seed always comes before the harvest.  But the harvest is always larger than the seed”. The disciples took the little bit of food they could retrieve and put it into the anointed hands of Jesus Christ.  Suddenly their worries and fear was laid to rest and they ended up with more then they could have hoped for on that day.

We must learn how to recognize this situation and respond the way Jesus responded.  If what we have is not enough, then offer that little bit to God.  If all you have is $100, offer your $100 to God as a seed.  Your harvest will be more than enough for what you need. If you have just 10 members in your group, go do God’s work with the 10.  If you have only five, go with five.   If all you have is one voice, offer your one voice to God. By offering God this seed of faith, you’ve obligated him to keep his word and multiply your seed into an abundant harvest of more then you could have asked for.

 We must learn to embrace the situation of “lack” as an opportunity to trust God and receive a blessing.  We must not retreat when we recognize that we haven’t enough to go on, because it is at that time that God wants to provide for us.  This can be frightening at first, but there is no other way that God can prove himself strong to us.  There is no other way that he can prove that he is faithful, that his mercies will endure forever.  It’s the only way we can build our confidence in Jehovah God When there is not enough, we must offer God what we do have and stand on his word that there will soon be more in store.  We must defy the frightening situation of “lack” and come out victorious, abundantly blessed.

Worship Crusade Ministries International

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