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twelve full baskets of the broken pieces, and also of the fish,
and there were five thousand men who ate the loaves.”

The Lord Jesus took a little boy’s lunch and divided it
thirteen ways. I don’t know 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 look 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; to 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 with 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