Luke 9:16-17 Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude. And they did eat, and were all filled: and there was taken up of fragments that remained to them twelve baskets.
The disciples worried — we only have five small loaves and two fishes! Whatever will we do?? Five loaves and two fishes could never feed the multitudes in the natural realm! But we have a God who is in the multiplication business! He works on an entirely different mathematical equation than we are accustomed to — He takes the little we offer and turns it into more than we could fathom!
How often do we feel as if we have little to offer? The Lord is interested in everything we have to give, even if it seems minuscule to our eyes!
Let’s not be afraid to offer up our gifts, talents, abilities, accomplishments and material things that we may find insignificant. They are not! When we give up even the littlest of things to the Lord, He brings forth an abundance!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]As we continue to probe the lessons from the salt covenant, we now inquire into our part in the covenant.
Yeshua (Jesus) said He is the “bread of life”. It was His body that was broken on our behalf as the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. Notice that He never once called us to be the “bread of life”! He is the ONLY “Bread of Life” – the true bread who came down from Heaven which anyone may eat and not die. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is His flesh, given for the life of the world.
For years, when I visited my father-in-law’s home in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, we would break bread and bless the bread with the traditional blessing – “Baruch Ata Adonai Eleheynu Melech HaOlam Ha-Motzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz” – which translated means,”Blessed are You Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has given us bread from the earth”. After the blessing, my father-in-law would take salt and sprinkle the challah bread as he broke and passed it to everyone at the table.
One day a passerby saw a homeless man on the roadside. He stopped for a moment to hand him some loose change and casually said “God bless you, my friend”.
“I thank God,” said the homeless man, “I am never unhappy.”
Here in Israel we have an interesting geographical phenomenon – there are two landlocked seas. One is alive and one is dead. The sea full of life is the Kinneret, better known as the Sea of Galilee. The dead sea is…….you guessed it, the Dead Sea. Now the Kinneret is constantly emptying as it flows through the Jordan River valley…. into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not empty its water at all. Instead, the Dead Sea is continually shrinking, because the intense heat at this lowest place on Earth actually evaporates more water than is flowing in. Do you see a parable here?
One of my passions is studying history, especially the American Civil War. Here is an amusing story about General Stonewall Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign. During the war, Jackson’s army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other.
We tend to focus on the part of that scripture where God does the blessing — but why did He bless Him? The answer lies in the passage! The Lord told Abraham: “I will bless you — and you shall be a blessing.” Abraham was blessed so that he could be a blessing!