SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/29/2012 10:20:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
feeding of the 5000
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark
6:30-44
Message
of the verses: In his commentary on
Mark 6:30-56 Dr. Wiersbe entitles his main point “The Unbelief of His
Disciples.” This entire chapter focuses
in on unbelief and we have mentioned in earlier SD’s how powerful unbelief can
be. When a person becomes a believer in
Jesus Christ they receive Him by grace through faith, accepting Him as their
Savior and Lord. When people reject
Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord they are called unbelievers and we pointed out
that there are only two types of people on planet earth, those who believe and
those who do not believe and so both belief and unbelief are very powerful entities. John the Baptist has this to say about those
who believe and those who don’t: “"He
who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will
not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
“30 The apostles gathered together
with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. 31 And
He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a
while." (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not
even have time to eat.) 32 They went away in the boat to a secluded place by
themselves.” (Mark 6:30-32)
In the last SD from Mark 6 we
remarked that Mark has a favorite way of writing and we called it a sandwich
method because he begins a story and then in the middle of it brings another
story in and then goes back to finish the first story. After Jesus visited Nazareth for the second
time and was amazed again at the unbelief of those whom He grew up with Mark
begins the story of Jesus sending out the twelve disciples to go into the
surrounding towns and villages to teach about the kingdom of God. This was kind
of like a trial run for when Jesus would go back to His Father the disciples
would be going out to preach and teach all around the known world. Of course the apostle Paul would be a part of
this group who would turn the world upside down by their teaching about the way
of salvation through the resurrected Lord.
When His disciples came back to Him,
Jesus wanted them to get away for a little R & R or rest and relaxation. This is needed for people who have had a
difficult task to perform or else they can become burned out. I remember at my work that I was in charge of
a job that was new and I worked a lot of overtime to accomplish the job. When the job was accomplished I was very
tired from all of the stress of accomplishing the job and so I took my family
on a vacation for a couple of weeks in order to get away and rest. Jesus wanted to do a similar thing for His
disciples because the work of the ministry is difficult and they needed a rest,
but it did not happen. Dr. Wiersbe
writes “Having experienced interruptions many times in my own life and ministry,
I marvel at His patience and grace! What
an example for us to follow.”
“33 The people saw them going, and
many recognized them and ran there together on foot from all the cities, and
got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and
He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and He began to teach them many things. 35 When it was already quite late, His
disciples came to Him and said, "This place is desolate and it is already
quite late; 36 send them away so that
they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves
something to eat." 37 But He answered them, "You give them something
to eat!" And they said to Him, "Shall we go and spend two hundred
denarii on bread and give them something to eat?" 38 And He said to them,
"How many loaves do you have? Go look!" And when they found out, they
said, "Five, and two fish." 39 And He commanded them all to sit down
by groups on the green grass. 40 They sat down in groups of hundreds and of
fifties. 41 And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward
heaven, He blessed the food and broke the loaves and He kept giving them to the
disciples to set before them; and He divided up the two fish among them all. 42
They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and they picked up twelve full baskets of
the broken pieces, and also of the fish. 44 There were five thousand men who
ate the loaves.” (Mark 6:33-45)
I want to remark on the word “eat”
for it is found in verse 32 showing that the disciples along with Jesus did not
have time to eat because they were so busy, and then we also see this word in
verses 36 and two times in verse 37 when the subject was on the crowd not
having anything to eat and also on Jesus telling them to give them something to
eat.
At the beginning of this story we
saw that Jesus sent His disciples out to the towns and villages in order to
show compassion on them because His disciples were to teach them about the
kingdom of God and now in this section we see the crowds coming to Jesus and
Jesus saw them as “sheep without a shepherd,” but His disciples saw them as a
problem or even a nuisance and thus they wanted Him to send them away so that
they could get something to eat. There was a lesson here for
Jesus disciples and according to verse 52 they did not learn that lesson,
“for they had not gained
any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.” I have read or listened to this chapter many
times in the past month or so and verse 52 stands out to me like none of the
other verses. Jesus sends His disciples
out to teach and to tell others about the kingdom of God, but He also empowers
them to do miracles, even to raise the dead.
I think that it is in Luke’s Gospel that we learn from those Jesus had
sent out that they tell Him that even the demons obeyed their commands. They were doing powerful miracles, but when
it came to this crowd they wanted Jesus to send them away. I have thought about this section of
Scripture many times and what I came up with is that Jesus wanted His disciples
to step out in faith and do something that they were empowered to do when He
sent them out, but none of them believed that they could do anything like
that. I wonder if there is something in
my life that the Lord wants me to do for the cause of Christ that because of
unbelief I am not doing.
The disciples looked at the problem in two different ways;
first they suggested sending them away to buy food for themselves, and second
to raise the money to buy the food. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “With that kind of approach, they would have made ideal
committee members! Someone has defined a
committee as a group of people who individually can do nothing and collectively
decide that nothing can be done.” Jesus
looked at this as an opportunity to seek help from His Father so that His
Father would be glorified. Dr. Wiersbe
writes “An effective leader is someone who sees potential in problems and is
willing to act by faith. Acting on the
basis of human wisdom, His disciples saw the problem but not the
potential. How many times God’s people
have complained, ‘If we only had enough money, we could do something!’ Two hundred pence (denarii) would be the
equivalent of a year’s wages for the average laborer! The first step is not to measure our resources, but to determine God’s
will and trust Him to meet the need.”
In John’s Gospel we learn that it
was Andrew who found the young man with the food and brought it to Jesus and
then Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves in order to feed 5000 men along
with women and children. How thoughtful
it was for the young man to bring his lunch and how generous it was of him to
give it to Jesus. Jesus is the creator
of all the universe and so it would have been not problem for Him to multiply
the fish and the loaves through the power of the Holy Spirit who was also part
of the creation.
We also find out from John’s Gospel
that the people did appreciate the miracle, and even wanted to make Him king at
this point, but they missed the spiritual message. They must have thought that to have a King
who could provide food for an army and raise the dead when someone gets killed
that they could surely defeat the Romans.
His enemies must have thought about this too.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Lord
please don’t let my faith waver and allow me to bring something small to You
that You can use for the cause of Christ and the Glory of the Father through
the power of the Holy Spirit.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Remain or abide in the Vine so that I can be used by the Lord to glorify
the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.
5/29/2012
11:19:41 AM
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