Five loaves and two fishes
Please meditate on Mark 6:30-42 prayerfully. During His earthly ministry, Jesus was always “moved with compassion” for the great multitudes that followed Him, “because they were as sheep not having a shepherd”. Apart from teaching them, He also met their physical need of healing and of food. In this passage, we read that the disciples wanted to send the multitude away because they were in a deserted place, and that too, the hour was already late. Dear minister, do you want to send away the people to whom the Lord wants you to minister simply because you do not have enough resources at your disposal to minister to them, owing to the spiritual wilderness of your ministry? Since the burden is cast on your shoulders to minister to the multitude, you would say, “I have no enough bank balance” or “No enough funds are forthcoming for my ministry”. You may be wondering as to how you can carry on your ministry due to paucity of funds in your organization, which has since become a desert. Christ said to His disciples, “Give ye them to eat”. Similarly, you have to minister to them in this wilderness.
You must have definitely some money in your pocket or in your bank. This is exactly “the five loaves and the two fishes”. Normally, one hungry person can himself consume all these five loaves and two fishes. What about the multitudes to whom you have to minister? What about the multitude of children in your orphanage? What about the multitude of missionary workers in your organization? What about the multitudes of lost souls in your evangelical mission field to whom you are supposed to give the Heavenly Manna? What about the thousands of the people of God in the universal body of Christ to whom you are supposed to minister?
Do you think that the five loaves and the two fishes in your hands are enough to minister to the great multitude? Say “Amen” today.
With the five loaves and the two fishes, Jesus fed, through the hands of His disciples, five thousand people. What is pre-eminently required is not enough money in your pocket but “compassion” in your heart for the multitudes. First, you have to make necessary arrangements for the people to receive such great blessings from God. Jesus “commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass”.
The green grass means the abundant grace of God. You may ask the needy people of your organization to sit down on the green grass. Ask them to be disciplined in their place of work, be it mission field or office. Tell them about the abundant grace of God available to them in the Name of Christ Jesus. If you have been led by the Holy Spirit to arrange an evangelistic crusade, you may go ahead with the arrangements without waiting for the funds to arrive. If you have been led by the Holy Spirit to construct some church building, you may go ahead with your plan without waiting for the funds to arrive. You may be running a commercial organization, which has since become bankrupt.
What you have next to do is look up to your Father in Heaven, and thank Him for the five loaves and the two fishes in your hands. Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He will perform similar and even greater miracles for us today through the ministry of the Holy Ghost.
- Job Anbalagan