February 17th, 2023
by Jon Welch
by Jon Welch
Eating healthy
The news of John’s death and how he died stung like a sharp knife, piercing Jesus’ soul. Grieving, Jesus retreats to the comfort of the Father and the silence of the Sea of Galilee. He tells his disciples to be with Him, and He escapes to a secluded place. People were coming from everywhere after hearing the news about John’s death (Mark 6:31). Some feel that this crowd was angry and ready for a revolution and a new King (John 6:15)! What will happen?
Read Luke 9:12-17; Matthew 14:15-21; Mark 6:35-44; John 6:1-14
Jot down what you discover about:
Why were the crowds following Jesus?
What did the twelve want to do with these crowds?
What lessons do you think God the Father wanted the disciples to learn during this experience?
What/Who made this miracle possible?
Clearly, Jesus had every intention of crossing the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida and retreating with His disciples to a quiet place to grieve (Luke 9:10). But the Father had a different plan, a lesson in leadership through times of personal loss and deep personal pain. From the boat, Jesus sees that the crowd is already beginning to gather and decides to dock close by. The crowd is forming for a variety of reasons. Some want to avenge John’s death and make Jesus the new king (John 6:15). Others came for the many miracles the disciples and Jesus were doing (John 6:2). As the crowd begins to form, Jesus takes his disciples quickly and escapes to a mountain ledge nearby, overlooking Bethsaida and the Sea of Galilee. I imagine Jesus, angry and frustrated over the seemingly senseless death of His best Friend, laying prostrate on the ground, begging the Father to do something, anything. From this position, the Father must have said, “Son, Lift your eyes!” We read in John 6:5 that Jesus looked and saw the incredible number of people marching toward him. Mark 6:34 says that Jesus sees this massive crowd assembling below Him, and He is moved with compassion for them because they look to Him like sheep without a shepherd.
As Jesus and His leaders decent the mountain to the crowd of people below, Jesus turns to Philip and asks him, “‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat”’ Surely Philip will respond in faith, believing God will provide a miracle. Andrew, who had just returned from his mission trip having seen God provide supernaturally, does some quick math, checks with Judas to see how much is in the money bag he was carrying, and tells Jesus that it would take way too much money to feed the crowd. As the day wears on, Jesus teaches and ministers to the enormous crowd–5,000 men, plus women and children. Some calculate as many as 20,000 people. Wow! Now it is late, and everyone is starting to get hungry. Jesus tells the twelve leaders to give the people something to eat. They ask if they should spend the 200 denarii they had to buy the bread. At this point, Jesus says, “Go, collect what you can from the people and bring it here.”
In this case, the only person with something to give was a young man Andrew found. This guy was willing to give all he had– five barley biscuits and two small, sardine-size fish. With this sparse offering, Jesus has His largest outreach event. Some would argue His biggest miracle was feeding 5,000 men, plus women and children, and having twelve baskets left over after everyone had eaten their fill. Let me unwrap the lessons of multiplication that I think Jesus is teaching His leaders:
Lift your eyes and see the need: Multiplication begins as you get your eyes off of yourself and see the needs of others.
Allow your heart to feel compassion for the needs of others.
Assemble the resources you have around you. They didn’t start with much, but God made it work. Was the young man the only one who had something to offer? No way! Others had food, but the difference was that they were not willing to share it. They were saving it for themselves and their families. One young man gave all he had, and God multiplied it. Someone has to give it all if you are going to see multiplication happen in your world.
Get organized and allow the supernatural to happen. In our narrative, Jesus tells the disciples to seat the people in groups of 50 or 100, making it easy for Matthew, the numbers guy, to quickly count and give us the facts (Matthew 14:21).
Offer all you have to God in Faith with thanksgiving, believing that all things are possible with God. In our narrative, Jesus takes the food, looks up toward heaven with eyes wide open, and thanks the Father for His provision (John 6:11).
Take a step of obedience and trust God to do the supernatural!
Jesus divided the five biscuits and the two fish among the twelve, giving each leader some. I can only imagine the faces of these leaders as Jesus tells them to turn and distribute the food among the people. The looks had to have been priceless. So, when did multiplication begin? It began when the disciples obeyed and not before. Then, as they distributed the food in faith, believing in God, the miracle started happening. Think about it.
Multiplication will only happen in your life as it did for Jesus and His early leaders. So lift your eyes, see the need, be filled with compassion, assemble the resources, organize your life for a miracle, offer up the help you have in faith with thanksgiving, and then, most importantly, take a step of obedience.
Spend some time today thinking about Jesus’ principles of multiplication. Are you living with these principles? Are you positioning yourself for God to begin the multiplication process in your life?
Read Luke 9:12-17; Matthew 14:15-21; Mark 6:35-44; John 6:1-14
Jot down what you discover about:
Why were the crowds following Jesus?
What did the twelve want to do with these crowds?
What lessons do you think God the Father wanted the disciples to learn during this experience?
What/Who made this miracle possible?
Clearly, Jesus had every intention of crossing the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida and retreating with His disciples to a quiet place to grieve (Luke 9:10). But the Father had a different plan, a lesson in leadership through times of personal loss and deep personal pain. From the boat, Jesus sees that the crowd is already beginning to gather and decides to dock close by. The crowd is forming for a variety of reasons. Some want to avenge John’s death and make Jesus the new king (John 6:15). Others came for the many miracles the disciples and Jesus were doing (John 6:2). As the crowd begins to form, Jesus takes his disciples quickly and escapes to a mountain ledge nearby, overlooking Bethsaida and the Sea of Galilee. I imagine Jesus, angry and frustrated over the seemingly senseless death of His best Friend, laying prostrate on the ground, begging the Father to do something, anything. From this position, the Father must have said, “Son, Lift your eyes!” We read in John 6:5 that Jesus looked and saw the incredible number of people marching toward him. Mark 6:34 says that Jesus sees this massive crowd assembling below Him, and He is moved with compassion for them because they look to Him like sheep without a shepherd.
As Jesus and His leaders decent the mountain to the crowd of people below, Jesus turns to Philip and asks him, “‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat”’ Surely Philip will respond in faith, believing God will provide a miracle. Andrew, who had just returned from his mission trip having seen God provide supernaturally, does some quick math, checks with Judas to see how much is in the money bag he was carrying, and tells Jesus that it would take way too much money to feed the crowd. As the day wears on, Jesus teaches and ministers to the enormous crowd–5,000 men, plus women and children. Some calculate as many as 20,000 people. Wow! Now it is late, and everyone is starting to get hungry. Jesus tells the twelve leaders to give the people something to eat. They ask if they should spend the 200 denarii they had to buy the bread. At this point, Jesus says, “Go, collect what you can from the people and bring it here.”
In this case, the only person with something to give was a young man Andrew found. This guy was willing to give all he had– five barley biscuits and two small, sardine-size fish. With this sparse offering, Jesus has His largest outreach event. Some would argue His biggest miracle was feeding 5,000 men, plus women and children, and having twelve baskets left over after everyone had eaten their fill. Let me unwrap the lessons of multiplication that I think Jesus is teaching His leaders:
Lift your eyes and see the need: Multiplication begins as you get your eyes off of yourself and see the needs of others.
Allow your heart to feel compassion for the needs of others.
Assemble the resources you have around you. They didn’t start with much, but God made it work. Was the young man the only one who had something to offer? No way! Others had food, but the difference was that they were not willing to share it. They were saving it for themselves and their families. One young man gave all he had, and God multiplied it. Someone has to give it all if you are going to see multiplication happen in your world.
Get organized and allow the supernatural to happen. In our narrative, Jesus tells the disciples to seat the people in groups of 50 or 100, making it easy for Matthew, the numbers guy, to quickly count and give us the facts (Matthew 14:21).
Offer all you have to God in Faith with thanksgiving, believing that all things are possible with God. In our narrative, Jesus takes the food, looks up toward heaven with eyes wide open, and thanks the Father for His provision (John 6:11).
Take a step of obedience and trust God to do the supernatural!
Jesus divided the five biscuits and the two fish among the twelve, giving each leader some. I can only imagine the faces of these leaders as Jesus tells them to turn and distribute the food among the people. The looks had to have been priceless. So, when did multiplication begin? It began when the disciples obeyed and not before. Then, as they distributed the food in faith, believing in God, the miracle started happening. Think about it.
Multiplication will only happen in your life as it did for Jesus and His early leaders. So lift your eyes, see the need, be filled with compassion, assemble the resources, organize your life for a miracle, offer up the help you have in faith with thanksgiving, and then, most importantly, take a step of obedience.
Spend some time today thinking about Jesus’ principles of multiplication. Are you living with these principles? Are you positioning yourself for God to begin the multiplication process in your life?
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4 Comments
I had always heard this story growing up in church, I’m pretty sure we even had a little song to represent it at Sunday School. It’s not until I’m grown that I can truly realize how powerful it is. Jesus wanted his disciples to have some faith, the Bible says faith the size of a grain of mustard seed can move a mountain. God provided the food through the young lad, now it was Jesus and the disciples turn to distribute that. I can just imagine the looks on their faces and they never seemed to run out of food no matter how many people they were serving. Then to have the baskets of leftover provisions, wow!
I’ve never seen someone feed 5,000 but I have seen my mom take one meal and be able to feed an army of kids. When I was younger, my parents were the youth pastors at church and we would have kids over all the time. I had lots of “older” brothers and sisters out of those kids. My mom never once turned anyone away when it came time to eat. My mom had faith that she could feed all of us, and always did. I’m thankful I had a mom who showed, and still shows, faith like this!
I hate to repeat my comment but with disaster relief we I had the privilege of cooking and serving sometimes over 25,000 meals a day to help give them the basic need of nutrition no matter how many or how few it’s one soul at a time when you do it do it with love and I would like to say when I have fixed food for Leesburg I really had no idea how important my little contribution meant till three years ago I had surgery and became a recipient of the meals I was home and I wanted meatloaf and mashed potatoes so bad when George brought home the food well you know it was exactly that no more no less I cried we ate on it three meals I say no more
This is Powerful 😭😭😭
I have seen this so much in my life that it always brings me to tears to see what God and how he gets Glorified when you get behind yourself and let him lead. He will multiply every time. I have too many testimonies on this, it would take all night.
When we obey what God says, he will show up. Why we even question it? Well, I know because satan doesn’t want us to see what really happens when we obey so he tells us we can’t afford to give, we don’t have time to serve and we are too busy to invest in people.
Thank you Jesus for always showing up and being faithful, even we aren’t.
What keeps coming to my mind throughout this study is the endless patience and compassion Jesus has. He would be exhausted or grieved, needing rest and solitude desperately I’m sure. But when the people ultimately followed him he would see them and be moved with compassion for them. I was amazed at how many times the scriptures mentions this happening. “Distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.” It’s all too easy to feel distressed and dispirited , at times, even as a believer. This gives me reassurance to believe that there is nothing too small to pray about. His compassion for us in unending.