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God's Abundance

by Steve Countryman  
1/22/2015 / Bible Studies

Jesus feeds five thousand Luke 9:12-17 12 Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here."

13 He replied, "You give them something to eat."

Now Jesus knew that the disciples didn't have enough food to feed the people. But what He spoke was "that which is not as if it were".

They answered, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fishunless we go and buy food for all this crowd." 14 (About five thousand men were there.)

The disciples were only thinking in the natural about going to buy food for the people. They didn't consider asking Jesus to do the impossible. The 5,000 men counted didn't include women and children. It is estimated that there were more than 15,000 present.

But he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each." 15 The disciples did so, and everyone sat down. 16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people.

Doing some rough math, each disciple had about thirty groups of 50 people each to feed. Jesus gave each disciple a portion of both bread and fish to give to the people. Each disciple took their basket of food and gave it to each group. As the people passed around the basket of food they took the food to eat then gave it back to the disciple who took it to the next group. He then repeated this until all of the people were fed.

Now people are people through out time. If you have ever flown cross country you know what it feels like to be seated towards the back of the plane when the stewardesses start passing out the food. You faintly hear what the menu selection will be and hope that what you want is still available when they get to you. You become antsy especially if you're hungry. So you know that those people seated on the ground waiting to be fed felt even more so as they watched the disciples hand out the food. They were hoping that there would be some food left to eat. The crowd all got to witness the miracle first hand as each disciple moved from group to group handing out food. There was no one there to replenish there baskets as they moved along, but their baskets were always full.

17 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

The miracle was an ongoing miracle of abundance. Most likely there are three types of people who were there. When the food came around you had one type that would only take a little so as to leave some for others. They cared about others being able to eat. Then you have those who took more than they needed not caring at all if others got to eat. Then the last group was the ones who took what they thought was enough for their hunger. When you go out to eat at an all you can eat buffet, you sometimes will get up and go back for more if you're extra hungry. Most of these people hadn't eaten in a while and were most definitely very hungry. What happened was all part of this miracle.

The food that Jesus gave his disciples to pass out fulfilled what He declared earlier "You give them something to eat." The food started to multiply and continued to do so not only as it was handed out to the groups but also afterwards when it was being eaten. Those who didn't take enough food for fear of others not having anything to eat ate until they were "satisfied". That also was true for those who took what they thought was enough but were still hungry, they ate until they were "satisfied". I believe that the food kept multiplying even in their stomachs after they ate. And those who took too much had enough left over and were so full of food that they gave their extra food back to the disciples who picked up 12 basketfuls of left over food.

God's abundance is so great that all of the people not only had enough to eat but were "satisfied", full, stuffed, gorged, time to loosen the pants belt a little. What is amazing is that the people didn't come out to the middle of no-where to be fed food but to be fed the Word of God. Jesus took care of all of their needs including healing, deliverance and their empty tummies, God's abundance!

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