SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/13/2022 12:25 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The Display of Power”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
14:18-21
Message of the verses: “18 And He said,
"Bring them here to Me." 19 And ordering the multitudes to recline on
the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward
heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the
disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes, 20 and they all
ate, and were satisfied. And they picked up what was left over of the broken
pieces, twelve full baskets. 21 And there were about five thousand men who ate,
aside from women and children.”
In these verses we will be looking at the primary
focus of the story, and in them we will see the disciples’ dullness of
perspective is overruled by Jesus’ display of power.
I
have to believe that Jesus was a bit saddened over the fact that His disciples
did not look at this situation and have the faith in Him to be able to feed
this crowd as Jesus said “bring them here to Me” as He was referring to the
loaves and fish. Perhaps the disciples
should have brought this small meal to Jesus and given it to Him in order to do
with it what He wanted to do with it, but they had to be told. MacArthur writes “He was saying, in effect, ‘I
knew that you did not have sufficient food or money to feed the people, and I
knew that you had no way of getting it.
I never expected you to feed them from your own resources or by your own
power. In asking you to feed them, I was
asking you to trust Me. Without having
to tell you, I was giving you the opportunity to bring to Me what little you
had and trust Me for the rest.’”
I
understand that this part of Israel around the northeastern shore of the Sea of
Galilee is very often beautiful during the spring of the year as there is green
grass during the spring of the year. The
people were standing so they could see and listen to Jesus. Now He wanted them to sit down in what the
Greek is saying prasia prasiai, and
this actually means “garden bed by garden bed.”
They were in groups of hundreds and fifties according to Mark 6:40, and
this allowed paths between the groups for the disciples to walk while serving
them the food. MacArthur adds “In their
brightly colored garments, the crowd must have resembled an enormous mosaic of
flower beds or a gigantic quilt spread across the hillside.”
I
really don’t think that the people had any idea of what was coming as they were
told to sit like was just described. It
is possible that the disciples may have guessed why, but they still did not
know how all of this was going to take place until Jesus began to bread the
bread and fish and pass it out to the disciples. We read Jesus took the five loaves and the
two fish; however before He would pass them out He thanked the Father and He
performed the miracle that He had planned on doing all along, looking up toward
heaven, He blessed the food, as He gave thanks, which is seen in John 6:6, 11;
compare 1 Tim. 4:3-5. “3 men who forbid
marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be
gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything
created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with
gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Our Lord
has His way of doing things and sometimes we don’t really understand it, but
that is where faith and trust have to come into play as we walk with the Lord
each day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord each and every day in order to
not miss out on what He has for me to do to bring glory to Him.
6/13/2022 12:54 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment