Focus: Through My Hands

Text: Mt.14:19

"And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude."

A large crowd has been following the Lord Jesus Christ for three days and they have run out of food, and to worsen matters, the place where they are, is a desert, meaning that they are very far away from residential areas, and also, the night is fast approaching. The disciples have no food to feed the hungry multitude and they have not enough money to take care of the situation, and if at all they have money, there is no close-by market to buy food. Another thing that compounds the problem is that they are most likely to faint on the way if they are released to go without food in their stomachs. It is really a complicated situation, an impossible one for that matter.

The Lord Jesus Christ says to His disciples, "Give them to eat." That is an impossible order. Where will they get the food to feed the crowd? That is indeed a tall order. In fact, one of them says, "There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?" (Jh.6:9). We are talking about a multitude of five thousand men besides women and children. That is a huge number.

Interestingly, it is in the place of the impossible that we experience the miraculous. Nothing will ever go wrong where Jesus Christ is Lord. In His presence there is no situation without solution.

People are Jesus' priority, and as far as they are concerned, He will always step into action to meet them at the very point of their need. Matthew reports that when He saw the multitude He was "moved with compassion toward them." At all times and in all places, Jesus is a people-person. People are uppermost in His mind. He thinks people and lives for them. His life revolves around others and always touching their lives with the blessings of heaven. 

Humanity is central to creation. Man is the crown of the cosmos. He comes first, in the divine scale of value, before all other things created by God.

With the available five loaves and two fishes, the Lord Jesus Christ fed the multitude miraculously. The amazing aspect of it all is that the miracle happened through the hands of His own disciples, the same set of people who saw the impossibility of the situation. The food multiplied in their own hands. The more they gave the more they had food in their hands until everyone was fully satisfied, and they had leftovers. They ASKED the Master, "Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude?" (Mt.15:33). They also ADVISED the Master, "Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat" (Mk.6:36). Philip adds, "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little" (Jh.6:7). Now the story is different. They are singing a different song. They have become privileged wonder workers. The Lord Jesus Christ has used them to do what they never thought was possible.

God never calls anyone for a task that is humanly possible. The work of God is done by the power of God and for the glory of God. The work of God requires the power of God to get it done. God calls us to take care of the impossible in people's lives. God will use you to achieve what you doubt is possible. In other words, God will use you to surprise yourself and others. You will be a wonder to yourself and your generation.

If the disciples had thought through the Scriptures they would have remembered how Moses miraculously fed the Israeli multitude in the desert for forty years. It was an impossible feat, but God took care of it through His servant Moses. 

All God wants from us is to believe Him and offer ourselves wholly to be used of Him.

The Lord is our Shepherd. He leads and feeds us, and calls us to partner with Him in the discharge of the miraculous. The Lord Jesus Christ is now saying to us, "Give ye them to eat." The task is challenging and the situation is looking impossible, but we have the power of God and the assurance of His presence of God in our lives and ministries.

God is ever ready to do even greater miracles through your hands. It is your time and turn to be used of God. God is still working and He is still in the business of using the available, the accessible and the consecrated. Through your hands greater miracles are due to happen. Get up, get dressed, and get going, for the Scripture is about to be fulfilled in your life, which says, "And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen" (Mk.16:20).

by Bishop Moses E. Peter