Give What You Got

Mark 6
37But he answered, "You give them something to eat." They said to him, "That would take eight months of a man's wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?"
38"How many loaves do you have?" he asked. "Go and see." When they found out, they said, "Five—and two fish."
39Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42They all ate and were satisfied, 43and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

There are three simple thoughts here that I want to log for posterity. First, I want to point out that the five thousand people were part of the miracle. Jesus did not sit and prepare meals for five thousand people. He had them sit down and then He blessed the bread and it was passed into the crowds. Each person there participated in this miracle. It should be noted that these people were already excited about Christ. He had healed the sick among them. They were in that isolated place because they had chased him around the lake on foot. The people in this crowd were so enthusiastic about Jesus that they told people in the towns they went through as they ran around the lake how incredible this man was and convinced others to join them. Their hearts were so preoccupied with this Messiah that they seemed to have forgotten to bring food. They came expecting miracles and they received what they expected.

Second, the disciples weren’t thinking about miracles. The disciples were tired. Jesus had taken them there to refresh them because he had seen how worn out they were from ministering to the people. They were not thinking supernaturally - even though a few hours earlier they were anointing the sick with oil and casting out demons. I want to highlight their excuse: money. They explained that they didn’t have enough money to do what Jesus was asking them to do and they weren’t expecting to be able to do miracles so they obviously weren’t filled with faith and expectation. They came dangerously close to missing a miraculous intervention because they tried to hide behind a lack of money and faith.

This leads to the third point. Even though they lacked money and faith, Jesus asked them for the food they had. He took what they had and used it.

So even it you don’t think you have the money or the faith for God to use you; make sure you offer Him what you have. He may add His own faith and His own riches to it and touch thousands through you.