"Jesus Feeds Five Thousand"

  "After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw he miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, "Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?" He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. 

 "Philip replied, "Even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them!" 

 "Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. "There's a young boy here with five barely loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?" 

 ""Tell everyone to set down, Jesus said. So they all sat down of the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, "Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted." So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scrapes left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves. 

 "When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, "Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!" When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself." (John 6:1-15 NLT)

 Before I get too carried away, let me finish that thought from yesterday, as I was just a little bit wrecked by the end of yesterday's post. The whole point of my message was about those Jewish leaders having head knowledge of God's word, but not seeing The Word that was standing before them. The whole that they needed was right there, but they were stuck on their own thinking, so much, they could not even consider the nuggets of Truth that Jesus was telling them: their hearts were hardened to God's Word! 

 This is a sad state of affairs; not just for them, but in this current culture in which we are living, right now, in this country and around the world! Having seen for myself, the bitterness and discuss in the hearts of those, within the church, who are resistant to the teaching of God's word; I can only assume we are living in a time where God's word is offensive to the majority of those that call themselves a believer in Christ. Not that they don't like hearing a message, because there are plenty of people that are going back to church; but they don't want to feel uncomfortable or convicted! 

 Maybe the best thing that ever happen, was the thing we thought was the worst. The whole point of yesterday's post was that we cannot ever get to a place where we think we are not broken! We are in this fleshly body, that remains attached to this world, and we are still dealing with sin! If we don't think that we need help, then we are utterly helpless and alone. But if we know we need help, at least we have a chance to cry out to the Healer of our souls! 

 Anywho, I am really glad to be here; as this part of the story gets into the practical side of our faith! Regardless of where you stand, sitting down for a filling meal, is pretty much non-objective to almost every believer. Who doesn't like to eat? Besides, what basic principle could we talk about in this little miraculous sign? Oh, I know: Everything! Boomshakalaka...

"As I looked, I saw a great storm coming from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. There was a fire inside the cloud, and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber. From the center of the cloud came four living beings that looked human, except that each had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight, and their feet had hooves like those of a calf and shone like burnished bronze. Under each of their four wings I could see human hands. So each of the four beings had four faces and four wings. The wings of each living being touched the wings of the beings beside it. Each one moved straight forward in any direction without turning. 

 "Each had a human face in the front, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle at the back. Each had two pairs of outstretched wings - one pair stretched out to touch the wings of the living beings on either side of it, and the other pair covered its body. They went in whatever direction the spirit chose, and they moved straight forward in any direction without turning around." (Ezekiel 1:4-12 NLT)