Matthew 14:13-21
When Jesus heard what had happened, he
withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds
followed him on foot from the towns. When
Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed
their sick.
As evening approached, the
disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already
getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy
themselves some food.”
Jesus replied, “They do
not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
“We have here only five
loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
“Bring
them here to me,” he said. And he
directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the
two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then
he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all
ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken
pieces that were left over. The
number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Not too long ago, my small group served a
meal for a group that meets at our church.
This group tends to be more people that have been unchurched, who have
faced a lot of challenges in life. We
were told we would be feeding about 70 people.
We spent time planning the menu, what it would take to feed that many
people, how much food we would need and everything that goes into an event like
this.
In Matthew, we read about how Jesus had gone
off in a boat to be by himself. Yet when
he came back to land, he found that this huge crowd had followed him. Instead of pushing them away, he welcomed
them, healed the sick and fed them. It
was not a small group either. This what
a huge group with five thousand men, besides women and children. He didn’t have to take time to plan a menu,
shop or anything else. He took five
loaves of bread and two fish. The same
amount that would barely feed many families these days. With that he fed all of them and had left
overs!
The acts that Jesus did on earth as an
ordinary man were not at all ordinary.
Each day he still does extraordinary things in our lives. Do you take the time to think about these
things? Today I want to encourage you to
think about the extraordinary things that Christ puts in your life. How can you take and multiple that to do
something extraordinary for someone else?