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What do you have?
Posted : 10 Mar, 2010 10:05 AM
I used to work with Believers that were struggling with what God wanted them to give. They were poor people, living in the housing projects and they often felt they had nothing to give to God whether they were talking about possessions, money, or ministry. The leader of a ministry in the projects asked me to teach something at the Sunday service about this. After some prayer I was reading over Matthew in search of something to talk about that would address this question - what can I give when I have nothing?
Here is what I spoke about:
Mat 14:15 And evening coming, His disciples came near to Him saying, The place is deserted, and the hour is already gone by. Dismiss the crowds, that going away into the villages they may buy provisions for themselves.
Mat 14:16 But Jesus said to them, They have no need to go away. You give them food to eat.
Mat 14:17 But they said to Him, We have nothing here except five loaves and two fish.
Mat 14:18 And He said, Bring them here to Me.
Mat 14:19 And commanding the crowds to recline on the grass, and taking the five loaves and two fish, looking up to Heaven, He blessed. And breaking, He gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the crowds.
Mat 14:20 And all ate and were satisfied. And they took up the left over pieces, twelve hand-baskets full. (LITV)
These people had probably spent the entire day walking out of the cities into a desert place to see Jesus. Whatever food they brought with them they had eaten and they were all hungry again and it was evening. Now keep in mind that feeding 5,000 men plus women and children who are out out in the country so far away from any food is an overwhelming task. The disciples realized that there was a need for the people to get something for dinner and they came to Jesus suggesting He let them go into the city to get some food.
The disciples saw the need and knew they were powerless to feed this many people. Imagine this for yourself. You are out in the wilderness with thousands of people and it occurs to you they need to eat. What will you do about it? You can't feed this many people with whatever you have in your pockets or even with your credit card! Well they did the smart thing first, they went to Jesus and made Him aware of the vision they had - These people need to eat.
Jesus really cracks me up here because He says, they don't need to go anywhere. You feed them! Oh right, I'm going to run into town and grab some KFC for 12,000 people! I think we need a bigger bucket!!! Naturally they wondered, "how do we do that? We don't have enough food!" (Mar 6:37 And answering, He said to them, You give them food to eat. And they said to Him, Going, should we buy two hundred denarii of bread and give them to eat?)
But here's Jesus' key to the solution "you feed them". Really? Yes, you do it! Re-examine your resources. Take inventory of what you actually have. Get your focus off the problem and look to Me for a solution. You see, if you have the vision, the ability to recognize a need, a problem, an issue that needs attention you are the one to go to Jesus for the solution.
There was a boy with some food. Not even enough to feed the 12 disciples. Wow, there's the solution! It looks like nothing but it is everything that is needed. Jesus said, bring them to me and then He blessed the fish and bread.
So, the disciples had the vision that there was a need. They were powerless to solve the problem but they had a suggestion for a solution - Send the people to town. It was the only thing that made sense to them but Jesus had a different solution in mind. So they took what they had and put it in Jesus' hands. In his hands it became more than they needed, more than they could imagine and left over a blessing for them. Twelve baskets of left overs!
When my late wife and I had a ministry to the poor. We pooled our resources and gave all the time. We gave food, clothing, appliances, cars and trucks, computers, rent money, deposits for housing, paid utility bills and even went to court as character witnesses or for moral support. We never locked the doors to our house so that if our friends who were traveling through Tennessee needed a place to stop and eat, sleep, shower, whatever, they would have access to whatever they needed. (We lived way out in the woods)
We used the funds and things we had. We did not receive any donations and we never were given any money. However, we did come home to a kitchen full of groceries a few times, the earnings on our investments went up, even our grocery bill went down even though we were buying more food. We met a car dealer who would sell cars to us for less than $1,000.00 even though he could have sold them for more to someone else.
You may have visions for many needs and think you are powerless to do anything about them. But the principle to learn here is that as soon as we put our faith into action by taking inventory of our personal resources, that is, what we have, who we know, what we can find, and we put it in Jesus' hands He will take action and use us and our resources to fill the need!
When my wife passed away we had nearly 200 people at her memorial service. Most of them were our friends from the projects (about 175). They all insisted that they be allowed to share what she meant to them and how she had ministered to them. Three hours later we had to stop the service and move into the fellowship hall for some refreshments and fellowship but they didn't stop and for two more hours these people kept sharing. I had no idea that what we were doing was impacting so many people. We believed God would somehow use us to provide for those people we knew who had needs and He always did.
So I believe this is the principle we learn here. Do you see a need? Do you have a vision? What do you have in your inventory of resources? Don't look at what you have or what you can do as not enough. Take it to Jesus and He will do more than you can ever imagine could ever be done.
Thunder
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