When Our Supply Runs Dry

N.T.#163 "When Our Supply Runs Dry"

Oct. 12, 2023

Matthew 14-Part 6

LET IT GLOW

Are you in a difficult or impossible situation? A rebelious teenager? Employment? Medical diagnosis? Emotional struggles? Battles with sin and temptation? A failing marriage? All those can be real impossiblities for us.  Look to the One that does the impossible when our supply runs dry.

Not only were all the people filled that ate the miraculous dinner, but the disciples, too. 

Verse 20 says, And they did all eat and were filled: and they took up the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. 

With two dried, cured sardines and 5 small barley like crackers, nothing more that a small boy's snack, the Lord Jesus fed about 20,000 people. 

For an impossible task of the disciples:

• They had almost no food.
• They had no money, so divving up whatever money they had could not possibly be enough to fee this crowd.
• They didn't have the time. It had taken Jesus all day to go through the crowd healing those who were sick.
• They didn't have the energy or the manpower to feed the crowd. The disciples were hungry and exhausted, too.

Jesus was demanding the impossible of His disciples. He was testing them, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do. (John 6:6)

Instead of saying they couldn't do it, the disciples should have respoonded like Jeremiah the prophet, Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You. (Jeremiah 32:17)

Do we focus on what we can't do, or do we look to the God of possiblities? 

Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me? (Jeremiah 32:27)

 

LET IT GROW

God did not need what that lad gave willingly to share with those hungry. This insignificant offering was multiplied. What if the boy had been selfish and gobbled up his food, not willing to share it? But that was not the case.

Let's not overlook Jesus giving thanks to His Father for the food. It must not have been an elaborate pray, for folks were hungry. Any way, the prayer is not recorded. 

Another thing, the basket was a king of wicker basket that could be carried in one's arms easily enough. Not a big laundry basket, huh. Not only did Jesus provide what was needed, His miracle of multiplication produced an overabundance. There was enough leftover that each disciple could carry one basketful. Did the crowd have baskets with them? 

God's supply never runs dry. Isn't that what we see here?

LET IT GO

Supply all our needs according to Your riches in glory in christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:19)

Give us faith overflowing like the food, Jesus.