Biju Issac

If you happen to be a disciple of Christ, God has great expectations on you. In fact He is on the verge of banking on you fully, to execute the very burden and purpose of His heart. Will you cooperate with Him? What an incredible expectation!

When you read of Mathew’s account1 of the miracle about Jesus feeding five thousand or more with five loaves and two fish, you see some dramatic truths. When the disciples told Jesus about the massive crowd to be sent away to their homes, since the place was deserted, He said to them – ‘They do not need to go away. YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT.’

Is that statement making any sense to you? Is it logical of Jesus to ask these poor disciples to feed over five thousand people! How would you react to such a statement?

The disciples with astonishment replied –‘We have here ONLY five loaves and two fish’. You see an utter dejection and helplessness in that statement, for to the natural man, what are five loaves and two fish to do with five thousand! That statement was only a natural reaction, like we respond many a time.

Jesus replied –‘Bring them here to Me’. I believe this is the key statement of the whole miracle. He then BLESSED and BROKE and GAVE the loaves to the disciples and the disciples GAVE to the multitudes. Multitudes were fully fed. I see some divine principles here, which I would like to elaborate on. When God calls a person, he can be very incapable, in a worldly sense. But if he can bring ALL the little he has to the Lord, he can expect a miracle. The issue at stake with many believers is that they are not willing to give ALL that they have –be it their talents or time or money.

They withhold with a clenched fist, like every child of Adam, and God also withholds His blessings from them. Some of the major excuses I have heard people saying about serving God are, ‘I am not a good speaker’, ‘I have such a bad voice and my singing ability is close to zero’, ‘I am not having a good personality to attract people’s attention’, ‘I have severe stage fear’, ‘I am not a good organizer’ etc. I want to tell all such people, that they are wrong in their judgments in relation to serving God. The reason for that is God does not depend on these abilities to use a person. He is only looking for a willing soul, who is willing to give ALL the little he has into His hands joyfully. He can even make a donkey speak the words of God, like it happened in Balaam’s time. Praise God! God is not limited by our limitations of five loaves and two fish, He can always multiply it. For He is the Creator of all the earth.

But the question is: Are you willing to give all that you have, like the widow2 who put all her livelihood by putting in the little and all (two mites) she had? It involves sacrifice and a breaking out from our self-made comfort zones.

The whole passage of Jesus feeding the five thousand gives us a great picture of how God likes to relate with us and how he can make us fit to be used by Him. If you look at that incident in a heavenly sense, it would be something like this: God has placed you in a locality locality, , where people are lost and wandering in the wilderness in relation to the truth of the gospel of Christ. But then God gives you a concern and you pray for them and tell God –‘Oh God, you feed them spiritually’. But God retorts back and tells you –‘My son, you give them something to eat so that they would be nourished spiritually’.

You look around and exclaim –‘I am not of a talented make and I have only very little for myself, and how can I feed the thousands around me? I’m so incapable’. Then God answers –‘Bring all that you have to me’. He then blesses you, breaks you and makes you so supple that others can now feed on you, because God has done a miracle of softening and multiplying you. Hallelujah! I believe this is the roadmap to do any well-directed service to God. So if you need to be what God wants you to be, the following four things have to happen.

1. BRING THEM HERE TO ME: You need to come to God and be born again, knowing Christ Jesus in a personal way.

Your commitment to God should overtake your public testimony as a Christian. In such a deep commitment, you need to know what it means to give your all to God, like Abraham offered Isaac on the altar3. Also you need to know what it means to break the costly alabaster flask of precious and fragrant oil like Mary who poured all that at the feet of Jesus4. Even though the disciples claimed it as a waste, Jesus commended her actions. Are you willing to pour out your life as a ‘waste’ at your Savior’s feet?

2. HE THEN BLESSED IT: God would thus bless you with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, because you are in Christ. He would give you a great assurance about your salvation, making you rejoice with all joy for the calling you have received from God. God would thus adopt you and put the spirit of sonship into your hearts so that you call Him ‘Abba, Father’. Your sins are all forgiven and God does not remember it anymore. You are redeemed by His blood, being justified and glorified by Christ. You are now the very beloved of God –in fact, the apple of His eye because you are in Christ. To top all that, you have been made as a king and priest before God5. What authority and freedom you can thus experience in your daily walk!

3. HE BROKE IT: After being blessed, God would allow situations in our life to break our self. Our pride, ego, name before others, dependence on selfstrength and confidence in our gifts and abilities should all be broken and dealt with by God. Otherwise we would remain as ‘hard’ as a rock and no one can feed on us. The lives of Jacob and Moses are great eye openers in this regard.

God could convert that shrewd and clever Jacob, into a prince with God – Israel. For that, Jacob needed to be broken for twenty long years, before he could become a worshipper. God appointed a much shrewder Laban to exploit him consistently, till he lost all the confidence and pride in his self-strength. God succeeded thus in shattering his self-strength and he became weak in himself, worshipping God leaning on the staff.

Moses too had a similar story. He was trained up in all the tricks of the trade in Egyptian wisdom and was mighty in word and deed. He was a great warrior trained in the best military. He should have possibly been the next ruler of Egypt. At the age of forty, he was too strong in himself. God created a situation so that the ruler of Egypt misunderstood him and he had to run away from the palace. He lived in a desert thereafter and eventually started tending the sheep of his father-in-law. The prince of Egypt is now only a paltry and unknown shepherd for the next forty years. Think about it, as to how much humiliation Moses had gone through. When he was eighty years old, God met with him and commissioned him as a leader to get His people out of Egypt. But Moses was a seasoned and a prepared leader by then, for he was broken by God.

4. HE GAVE IT: This is a stage in our life, where we become a source of blessing to others around us. Others would feed on us, because we have been made soft and supple by God. Dear reader reader, nothing short of this is God’s will for you –YOU CAN SINGLE HANDEDLY FEED MULTITUDES (for God is in you)! I am not necessarily referring here to the preaching or teaching ministries that are public in nature (for not everyone is called to preach or teach), but it can very well be through the impact you are personally making on the lives around, because of your Christ like e behaviour behaviour. . They cannot but notice Christ in you, and the aroma of the life of goodness emanating from you, makes everyone look at you differently differently, , as you bless them.

Are you ready to be a blessing to the people around you? God’s word says that Christ Jesus became a curse for us on the cross8, so that the blessing of Abraham (by which all the nations of the earth were blessed) would come to us through the heaven outpoured Holy Spirit. You have a tremendous treasure in you, if you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. He can make all the difference in your life. He can show you the life of Christ and transform your character from within. The life of Christ within you can make you a witness even to the uttermost parts of this world, making you a great blessing.

But remember to COME to Christ, so that He can BLESS you, BREAK you and GIVE you to others!