Page 23 - Back to Bethlehem

The Lord Jesus took a little boy’s lunch and divided it
thirteen ways. I don’t know that if you were holding one
thirteenth of a little boy’s lunch what it would look like. The
gospel tells us that the smallest group was fifty. If you had that
in your hand and the smallest group was fifty people, what would
you do? Would you give it to one person? Would you try to
break it? It doesn’t look like enough. It doesn’t feel like enough.
It never feels like you have enough Jesus. But that morsel was a
picture of the adequacy of Christ. At the end, if God had said,
“Pick up everything you handed out,” it would break your back.
You wouldn’t be able to carry what you handed out. But at the
moment it doesn’t feel like enough or looks like enough.

I study to teach. It never feels like I have enough. But
when I look back over the years at how much God has given, I
couldn’t carry it all. Here’s what Jesus said, “Hand it out and
then come back for more. Give yourself until empty and bring
your basket for more.” How to obey an impossible command;
give yourself out empty and keep coming to Jesus. That was the
lesson of the loaves. Now our Lord Jesus is going to test them to
see if they learned the lesson of the loaves; trust Jesus to do the
impossible.

We know that something very spiritual is going on
because Jesus did something here that He never did before and
that He never did again. It’s a very strong word in the original
language. Matthew 14:22, “And immediately He made the
disciples get into the boat, and go ahead of Him to the other side,
while He sent the multitudes away.” He made them get into the
boat. He forced them. That’s the word. Maybe they said, “We’ll
help you clean up.” He said, “Get in the boat.” Maybe they said,
“We’ll wait for You.” He said, “GET IN THE BOAT!” And it
was such a force, that they had no choice. They had to get into
the boat.

Mark 6:45 teaches the same thing. “And immediately He
made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the
other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the