An Appointment with Christ: Multiplication of the loaves and fishes (Mark 6:30) Part 6

My dear brothers, I greet you in the mighty name of Christ Jesus. This is your friend and brother Roberto Miranda speaking and I have been sharing with you these last few weeks the passage from Mark, Chapter 6, and we have taken time analyzing this passage that concludes and culminates with the multiplication of the loaves and fish, because it has some tremendous and profound teachings like you, I believe, who will agree with me.

We see here that this crowd approaches Jesus in need of a word and the Lord dedicates time to teach them. At the end of the day a long teaching, the disciples say to the Lord Jesus Christ: "Lord, send them away so that they can go because night is getting closer and buy food, and we are going to continue with the rest that we had planned."

But the Lord, surprisingly, tells them: "You give them something to eat." Responding He said to them: "Give them, you to eat." They told him, I am reading verse 37, chapter 6: "Let us go and buy bread for 200 denarii and give them something to eat?" and two fish."

When Christ tells the disciples to feed the crowd, the disciples are horrified, they look at such a large number: 5000 men and here we are not counting the women and children. There were only 5,000 men, but there was an even bigger crowd. And of course, humanly speaking, it was impossible. The disciples first did not have the money, second they did not have a place to buy food and third there was no place big enough to provide food for so many people. All the conditions seemed impossible for the words of Christ to come true.

But I see something important here, he wants to emphasize this again, that the Lord wants a compassionate church here on earth that meets the needs of the world. I see Christ through his ministry, meeting needs. When physically sick people came to Him, the Lord used the power of God to heal, when demon-possessed people came to Him, the Lord used His authority to cast out demons, when emotionally troubled and mentally challenged people came, the Lord he ministered to the lunatic and the emotionally ill. When people like this crowd approached, needing a word of spiritual teaching, the Lord took time to teach them. And here we now see that this crowd has a physical need, they need food and the Lord through his grace and mercy now also feels compassion directed towards filling that physical need for food that the crowd has.

And the church of Jesus Christ here on earth has to be a church equally varied in its way of ministering. Sometimes we will need to pray for healing for the sick, sometimes we will need to rebuke demons and deliver people from demonic oppression, at other times the church will need to have a counseling ministry and minister to families and individuals the teaching of the word of God that allows you to receive the necessary knowledge to solve family, marriage, personal, emotional problems. And sometimes the church of Jesus Christ will also have to address social issues, the church of Christ has the wisdom and has the power to feed the hungry, to help the homeless, to help the unemployed, to intervene in the educational and academic affairs of the community. The church is a very powerful voice and full of wisdom and must mediate in all events in the life of the community.

There are many churches and many Christians who have a very limited idea of what the ministry is and we only believe that we have to limit ourselves to spiritual things. If someone comes with a material problem we simply say: "I will pray for you." But the Word says to be careful that when someone comes with a material need we don't send them away saying, well, the Lord bless you. I will pray for you. But that we also minister to that material aspect and that we be doers of the word and not only hearers of it.

It says in James, chapter 2: “My brothers, what good is it if someone says he has faith and does not have works. Can faith save you? And if a brother or a sister are naked and need daily maintenance and one of you says to them: Go in peace, warm yourselves and be satisfied but you do not give them the things that are necessary for the body, what is the use?

Good question, the church has to do works of mercy. Christians have to do works of mercy. Many times we will have the opportunity to be a blessing to a relative, a friend or even a stranger who has a material need, we will be able to share our money, our house, our food, a word of encouragement with someone. But many times we're so busy that we just say, God help you, I'm going to pray for you. You know what, you have the resources in your life to bless many, do not put the burden only on God because God wants you to share with Him, God wants you to feel the needs of others just as He feels it, and many times He will choose you as an instrument. He could do the job directly but God likes to work in partnership with his children and he wants us, his church, to be instruments of his grace wherever we are. You are an agent of God's grace, you as a Christian have to see yourself as an instrument in God's hands.

Wherever you are, commend yourself to God and ask God to make you an instrument of his peace. At work sometimes we find people in such need and we simply ignore it and say as Cain said: "Am I my brother's keeper?" You know the answer is yes. You are your brother's keeper, God expects you to worry about your brother's need.

Many times we offend God by living selfish lives, so caught up in our own problems and our own needs that we don't have time to feel sorry for others. The Lord Jesus Christ tells you, give him your food. Don't send people just like that, but Christ wants to use you in partnership with Him to bless those who are in need, those who are labored and burdened.

I want a merciful and compassionate church, just as He is merciful and compassionate. And the only thing the Lord wants is your attitude of disposition, He wants you to surrender to Him. When the disciples told him: Lord, we do not have the resources, he told them: Well, look to see what you have there in the crew? The disciples began to search and find out among the people and they returned and said: Lord, the only one we found among all these people is 5 loaves and two fish. And the Lord said: that is enough. You see, there is always something that you can give to God. The Lord could have created the bread and fish out of nothing. It was as easy for Him to create out of nothing as it was to multiply what little there was. But he always wants us to contribute something. You know that there is something in your life, there is a gift, there is a quality and there is a characteristic within you that God has placed in you that God can use to bless others. Each Christian has a gift given by God, each one of us is worth and has something to contribute to the Kingdom of God if we only believe.

You have only five loaves and two fish within you to feed the multitudes. Many of us feel so poor, so insignificant, so incompetent that we don't think God can use us. But every child of God, no matter how humble, has something of God's grace and God can use that as a starting point for his grace and mercy to manifest. Five loaves and two fish, a little boy from the crowd had that and Christ told them: Give me that, that will be the raw material that I am going to use to feed the crowd.

The disciples believed that they had nothing but there was something that Christ could use and so there is something in you that can be the beginning of the manifestation of God's grace in your life and through your life. Look for those 5 loaves and 2 fish, they are inside you and then begin to be a man or a woman of mercy. God bless you!