(Earlier this year I had the honour of being reacquainted with a mighty young woman in Christ. Among her other gifts and abilities is in writing and it’s my great pleasure to offer a guest blog entry for her to share a timely word about what we do with good news. So here be my friend and sister in Christ – Magz.)
Jesus And the People Well-Fed: Back Then
There is the episode where Jesus feeds at least 5,000 people with 2 fish and five loaves of bread. It is a great miracle signifying that God can supply our needs in abundance – all he needs is a seed.
On reading this scripture, however, I have always wondered who were the people in the crowd? Yes, there were men, women and children; yet what kind of people were they? What did they do?
During the time of Jesus, the Bible makes us to understand that he had many followers from all walks of life. Tax-men, prostitutes, fisher men and lawyers were all part of crowd who followed Jesus.
It’s fair to infer that many within the crowd may have been from a variety of professions as well as children. This led me to think what was their reaction when they heard the words of Jesus and saw the miracles he performed? Did some go back to work or where children gathered and share the great things they had seen? Surely they did and this is how the name of Jesus spread throughout the land. These people were witnessing things they had never seen before. The religious teachers had been there all the while. Many people knew the synagogue, they knew the law, they knew about prayer and fasting. Yet, they had not experienced the wisdom or witnessed the miracles the Messiah was performing.
Jesus And The People Well-Fed: What About Now?
This challenged me to think of this situation in the context of today. In order for God to spread the truth of His word he uses people. People are a vessel to carry the good news of Jesus far and wide. Jesus was made manifest in the flesh, He poured himself out into people and they in turn went forth and declared Him, His works and His wonders. Had people not shared the word, would the women with the issue of blood been healed? Would the 10 lepers have been healed? All these people hearing the word were dependent on people going out and making the name of Jesus, manifest within themselves and in others once they had an encounter.
The law had always been there since the days of Moses yet when Jesus arrived there was a stirring of God in the people. When Jesus brought grace to the land and ears of the people the truth of God was revealed!
Today, many of us have a perception of the ‘law’ of church. One can serve in the house of God – this is good. Whether this is singing in the choir, ushering, teaching or preaching – these are institutionalised roles within the church building. The ones who passed the basket during the feeding of the 5,000 were serving, the ones who no doubt guided the crowd were ushering. Yet our role does not finish there. Once they had had this encounter with Jesus, the desire for the word to spread compelled them to go out into their various fields and manifest the word.
Spreading After We’ve Been So Well-Fed
The crowd of 5,000 attended that day a powerful miracle service; just imagine that in today’s context. Many of us experience this on a Sunday, we are fed the word, sometimes we may experience it in fellowship, and miracles and wonders take place in the house of God. God may not always cause us there and then to see the lame walk and the blind to see. Yet, He has fed us with an incorruptible seed – His word and when this word germinates miracles follow!
Let us be like the crowd of people who did not just hear Jesus speak. They were the fisher men who went back to the other fishermen and shared the good new or the children who went back to boast of this man named Jesus.
Let’s step up and be bold like these people in crowd. Whatever field God has placed us in whether as a teacher, social worker, lawyer, housewife, farmer, student or a care-worker, whatever it is, find a way to reveal the word of God where you are using the platform you’ve been given.
People are waiting on you!
With love.
Magz100.
(Photos: Unsplash)
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