SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/11/2022 8:55 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1
“The Dullness of Perspective”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt 14:15-17
Message of the verses: “15 And when it was evening, the disciples came to
Him, saying, "The place is desolate, and the time is already past; so send
the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for
themselves." 16 But Jesus said to them, "They do not need to go away;
you give them something to eat!" 17 And they said to Him, "We
have here only five loaves and two fish.’”
The first thing that we have to understand is that
the Jews had two periods of evening. The
first one was from three to six, and the second was from six to nine. What we are seeing here in verse fifteen is
the first period of evening, which was just prior to sunset. Now it was because of the lateness of the day
that “the disciples” were concerned about what the crowed would have to
eat. “The place was desolate,” many
miles from the nearest town, which, in any case, could not have provided enough
food for all of these people. It was not
only near the end of the day, but the long trip had doubtlessly made the people
hungrier than usual as they had traveled a long distance to get to where Jesus
was.
Now
I have mentioned that this is the only miracle that is done by Jesus that is
recorded in all four gospels and so we can learn different things from each of
the gospel writers, who were or course inspired by the Holy Spirit. We find from John’s account that Jesus had
brought up the matter of feeding the multitude much earlier in the day. Let us read John 6:5 “Therefore Jesus,
lifting up His eyes and
seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, "Where
are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’”
Notice the highlighted portion of verse six showing that Jesus mentions
this to Philip earlier in the day. Now
Philip was from this area and would most likely have known what food would have
been available, but that was probably not the reason why Jesus asked him the
question about getting food for all of these people.
Perhaps
this is the time to look at testing and how it is used in the Word of God. In my understanding the word for testing can
also be used as tempting, and we know that that was not the case for Philip as
I believe that Jesus was testing Philip to see if he would remember the
different miracles that Jesus had already performed in his presence. I can think about Jesus turning water into
wine which was probably the best wine that had ever been served. Another thing that I am thinking about is
that the disciples had just returned from what I have referred to as a mission’s
trip as Jesus had sent them out and they too were performing miracles while on
that short trip. This was another reason
why everyone of this group were so tired.
The problem with Philip was he was more awed at the magnitude of the
crowd than the magnitude of Jesus’ power and so that is why he responded by
saying in John 6:7 “"Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient
for them, for everyone to receive a little.’”
A denarius was the normal day’s wage for a common laborer, but it was
obvious that nearly six month’s of such wages would not be enough to feed the
thousands of people that were there in this desolate place. Philip also knew that in the disciples funds
that there was not nearly enough money to buy that amount of food to feed these
many thousands of people.
Lord
willing we will talk about the solution that Jesus will have for this very
large problem that Philip and the other disciples could not figure out.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Since I have been a believer in Jesus Christ
there has been a few tests that have come my way, and I can say that I have not
always yielded to answers for these tests to the Lord, but tried to handle them
by myself. One test that was totally
given to the Lord was when our son was born with problem with his heart. By the time he was 18 months old he had had
two operations on his heart, one to get him prepared for the big operation
which happened when he was six months old, and then the big operation when he
was 18 months old. We trusted the Lord
for the outcome of our son and the Lord brought him through those surgeries
even though there was another smaller test after he had successful open heart
surgery. Our son is now 43 years old and
has three children, and I suppose has had tests of his own raising those three
children, as one of them is now driving, always a test for parents.
My Steps of Faith for Today: It is my desire to trust the Lord in all the
tests He sends my way.
6/11/2022 9:32 AM
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