God Speaking

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

(2 Corinthians 9: 7)

One of my favourite passages in the Bible is the Feeding of the Five Thousand. It is easy to grasp the setting. Crowds are so anxious to follow Jesus and listen to his teaching that they follow him even to an isolated place, not thinking of taking some sort of food with them. At the end of the day Jesus takes pity on them and realises they need to be fed. He first tests the disciple by asking them to give the crowds something to eat. The disciples are bewildered by his request, surely Jesus realises they are in a very isolated area and even if shops were near how would they have enough money to feed so many.  Then the story takes an unusual turn, Andrew, one of the disciples finds a little boy. 

“Another of the disciples, Simon, Peter’s brother, spoke up. Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6: 8 – 9) 

I always think of the reaction the boy had when he saw the disciples asking everyone if they had any food. Was he tempted to hide his little lunch hoping he could sneak off and eat it secretly? Did he think his lunch wasn’t worth telling the disciples about?  It was a wonderful example for all of us that yes it was a small gift, but he willingly gave it to Simon. Imagine his amazement as he saw the hungry people eating his lunch.

Everyone of us have been given gifts from the heavenly Father, it is the way we use them for his glory that matters.

“But each man has his own gift from God, one has this gift another has that.” (1 Corinthians 7: 7)

Sometimes we might think, like the boy, how could this small gift do any good. It is when we give it back to the Father, for his glory, that we see wonders happening, but we do need to recognize what we have been gifted with and not neglect using it as sometimes using means we must give up our personal time to benefit others. Paul when writing to Timothy in his first letter to him. (1Timothy 4: 14) 

Again, in his second letter Paul urges Timothy to fan his gift into flame. (2 Timothy 1: 6) 

When we realise, we have a gift from God we need to be braver in using it and the more we do we find that God gives us more reasons to use it 

A final word from Peter’s letter 

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in it’s various forms.” (1 Peter 4: 10)