God Wants You to Handle Miracles
Luke 9:12-17 (NIV)
Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here." He replied, "You give them something to eat." They answered, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fish — unless we go and buy food for all this crowd" (about five thousand men were there). But he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each." The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
Here is the classic account of Jesus taking five loaves and two fish, then multiplying them miraculously to feed a multitude of people. We do not know exactly how many; we know that there were about five thousand men, now add wives and children – we can safely say it was a very big need. The disciples' plan was to break up this life-changing event and send the people out to get their own food. This was actually good crowd management, but not what Jesus had in mind for the moment at hand. Jesus had a much more dynamic response to the situation.
His plan served two purposes:
It would take care of the physical needs of the people, because Jesus was genuinely concerned for the welfare of His listeners' physical condition and not just their spiritual one, unlike many of the Pharisees.
He wanted to use this great opportunity to get His team to feel what miracles felt like in their hands!
Jesus had felt miracles in His hands for many months as He demonstrated the power of God to change situations for people. Now He wanted to graduate His disciples to a higher level of experience. So this day, right in the middle of a demanding moment, Jesus says, "I am not doing it, I am going to pray - then it is down to you boys!" He prayed, handed them the supplies, then sat back and watched. As the seemingly little bits of bread and fish left the hands of the disciples they multiplied supernaturally to become exceedingly and abundantly more than what was needed for the moment. Where did this miracle happen? In the disciples' hands!
Listen, Champion - God wants to graduate us today from being spectators of miracles - which is good - to experiencing them in our hands and our lives - which is great. What if the disciples got scared and chose not to join in? They would have missed out on handling miracles for themselves. If we don't join in with Jesus when we have the opportunity we will miss out on handling miracles too. All God needs is willing, courageous hands and a little bit of something to supernaturally increase. How about you? Are you going to let Him do it through your hands today?
All things are possible to those who believe.
Andy
==============================================
Unsubscribe andy791.l1fe@blogger.com from this list:
http://greatbiglife.us1.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=25c0f3189b58b697b3da13e3c&id=943136c5b5&e=d7462e1fd5&c=04e155ca13
