SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/29/2012 10:20:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The feeding of the 5000
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark 6:30-44
Message of the verses: In his commentary on Mark 6:30-56 Dr. Wiersbe entitles his main point “The Unbelief of His Disciples.” This entire chapter focuses in on unbelief and we have mentioned in earlier SD’s how powerful unbelief can be. When a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ they receive Him by grace through faith, accepting Him as their Savior and Lord. When people reject Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord they are called unbelievers and we pointed out that there are only two types of people on planet earth, those who believe and those who do not believe and so both belief and unbelief are very powerful entities. John the Baptist has this to say about those who believe and those who don’t: “"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
“30 ¶ The apostles *gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. 31 And He *said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while." (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) 32 They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves.” (Mark 6:30-32)
In the last SD from Mark 6 we remarked that Mark has a favorite way of writing and we called it a sandwich because he begins a story and then in the middle of it brings another story in and then goes back to finish the first story. After Jesus visited Nazareth for the second time and was amazed again at the unbelief of those whom He grew up with Mark begins the story of Jesus sending out the twelve disciples to go into the surrounding towns and villages to teach about the kingdom of God. This was kind of like a trial run for when Jesus would go back to His Father the disciples would be going out to preach and teach all around the known world. Of course the apostle Paul would be a part of this group who would turn the world upside down by their teaching about the way of salvation through the resurrected Lord.
When His disciples came back to Him, Jesus wanted them to get away for a little R & R or rest and relaxation. This is needed for people who have had a difficult task to perform or else they can become burned out. I remember at my work that I was in charge of a job that was new and I worked a lot of overtime to accomplish the job. When the job was accomplished I was very tired from all of the stress of accomplishing the job and so I took my family on a vacation for a couple of weeks in order to get away and rest. Jesus wanted a do a similar thing for His disciples because the work of the ministry is difficult and they needed a rest, but it did not happen. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Having experienced interruptions many times in my own life and ministry, I marvel at His patience and grace! What an example for us to follow.”
“33 The people saw them going, and many recognized them and ran there together on foot from all the cities, and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things. 35 When it was already quite late, His disciples came to Him and said, "This place is desolate and it is already quite late; 36 send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat." 37 But He answered them, "You give them something to eat!" And they *said to Him, "Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them something to eat?" 38 And He *said to them, "How many loaves do you have? Go look!" And when they found out, they *said, "Five, and two fish." 39 And He commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass. 40 They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. 41 And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food and broke the loaves and He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them; and He divided up the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and they picked up twelve full baskets of the broken pieces, and also of the fish. 44 There were five thousand men who ate the loaves.” (Mark 6:33-45)
I want to remark on the word “eat” for it is found in verse 32 showing that the disciples along with Jesus did not have time to eat because they were so busy, and then we also see this word in verses 36 and two times in verse 37 when the subject was on the crowd not having anything to eat and also on Jesus telling them to give them something to eat.
At the beginning of this story we saw that Jesus send His disciples out to the towns and villages in order to show compassion on them because His disciples were to teach them about the kingdom of God and now in this section we see the crowds coming to Jesus and Jesus saw them as “sheep without a shepherd,” but His disciples saw them as a problem or even a nuisance and thus they wanted Him to send them away so that they could get something to eat. There was a lesson here for Jesus disciples and according to verse 52 they did not learn that lesson, “for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.” I have read or listened to this chapter many times in the past month or so and verse 52 stands out to me like none of the other verses. Jesus sends His disciples out to teach and to tell others about the kingdom of God, but He also empowers them to do miracles, even to raise the dead. I think that it is in Luke’s Gospel that we learn from those Jesus had sent out that they tell Him that even the demons obeyed their commands. They were doing powerful miracles, but when it came to this crowd they wanted Jesus to send them away. I have thought about this section of Scripture many times and what I came up with is that Jesus wanted His disciples to step out in faith and do something that they were empowered to do when He sent them out, but none of them believed that they could do anything like that. I wonder if there is something in my life that the Lord wants me to do for the cause of Christ that because of unbelief I am not doing.
The disciples looked at the problem in two different ways, first they suggested sending them away to buy food for themselves, and second to raise the money to buy the food. Dr. Wiersbe writes “With that kind of approach, they would have made ideal committee members! Someone has defined a committee as a group of people who individually can do nothing and collectively decide that nothing can be done.” Jesus looked at this as an opportunity to seek help from His Father so that His Father would be glorified. Dr. Wiersbe writes “An effective leader is someone who sees potential in problems and is willing to act by faith. Acting on the basis of human wisdom, His disciples saw the problem but not the potential. How many times God’s people have complained, ‘If we only had enough money, we could do something!’ Two hundred pence (denarii) would be the equivalent of a year’s wages for the average laborer! The first step is not to measure our resources, but to determine God’s will and trust Him to meet the need.”
In John’s Gospel we learn that it was Andrew who found the young man with the food and brought it to Jesus and then Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves in order to feed 5000 men along with women and children. How thoughtful it was for the young man to bring his lunch and how generous it was of him to give it to Jesus. Jesus is the creator of all the universe and so it would have been not problem for Him to multiply the fish and the loaves through the power of the Holy Spirit who was also part of the creation.
We also find out from John’s Gospel that the people did appreciate the miracle, and even wanted to make Him king at this point, but they missed the spiritual message. They must have thought that to have a King who could provide food for an army and raise the dead when someone gets killed that they could surely defeat the Romans. His enemies must have thoughr about this too.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Lord please don’t let my faith waver and allow me to bring something small to You that You can use for the cause of Christ and the Glory of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Remain or abide in the Vine so that I can be used by the Lord to glorify the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.
5/29/2012 11:19:41 AM
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