Leftovers

May 16

I Samuel 6-7

Psalm 60:6-12

Proverbs 13:22-23

John 6

Leftovers

“When they were full, He told His disciples, ‘Collect the leftovers so that nothing is wasted.’  So, they collected them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces from the five barley loaves that were left over by those who had eaten.”  John 6:12-13 HCSB

The miracle of feeding the 5,000 is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels.  Jesus had been teaching all day and people had gathered in large numbers to hear Him.  As evening approached, they started getting hungry.  They were in the middle of nowhere with no McDonalds or Chick fila around the corner to get food.  The disciples recognized that it was dinner time and approached Jesus to tell Him that He should stop teaching so the people could leave and go get something to eat. Instead, Jesus told them to feed the people.  They had no food and no money to buy food and even if they had money, they had nowhere to get food.  Andrew decided he would go into the crowd and see if he could find anyone with food.  All he found was a small boy with two fish and five pieces of bread.  The disciples knew they had no way to feed this crowd of people.   They were completely helpless to meet the need before them.  When we come to the place where we realize Jesus is all we have, we find out that Jesus is all we need.  

If I was the little boy, I might have been tempted to hang on to my food.  After all, he had planned ahead, (or more likely his mother had planned ahead) and all these other people had come unprepared.  Why should he give what he had to them?  Thankfully the little boy was more generous than me and he gave all he had to Jesus. 

Jesus took the little amount that He had and multiplied it exponentially to provide food for everyone there to eat all they wanted.  When we generously give our time and resources to God, He can multiply them and do far more than we can even imagine.  Not only did Jesus provide enough for everyone to eat, but He also provided so much that there were twelve basketfuls left over.  They ended up with more left over than they had to start with.  A few days ago, we talked about Jesus doing exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or imagine.  This is a perfect example of Jesus’ abundant provision.  He knows our needs and we can trust Him to provide for us.  I have often heard it said that you can’t outgive God.  If we give Him our meager resources, we can be confident that He will meet all our needs and that He will multiply our resources for use in His kingdom.