Jesus. Jesus and you!

Take it Bless it Give it

Jesus showed us a great principle when He fed the five thousand. It is the principle of "Take it, Bless It, Give it, and it shall come back to you good measure, pressed down and running over."

Matthew 16:9 " Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up".  As I read these words this morning, I realised that Jesus had performed this miracle, not just as another miracle to show His glory and the Glory of the Father, but also as an example to us of how we should be living our lives.

In Matthew 14:15-21 Jesus was faced with a great multitude of some five thousand men and added to that, was the number of women and children that accompanied them. In those days the women and children were not counted. In all probability the total number of people was close to ten thousand. The crowd had been with him for most of the day and the place they were in was desolate. There were no 24 hour convenience stores nearby and Mc Donalds had not moved into the area yet.

The disciples sensed that a problem was brewing and approached Jesus, saying to Him that He should send the crowds away so that they may go to the nearest town and buy for themselves food. Jesus gave them the reply that they did not really want to hear, and told them in verse 16 "You give them something to eat". You can only imagine the look on their faces when they told Him that they only had 5 loaves and two fish. Well you know Jesus, we only have this little amount of food for us, and we have been working hard all day and we are very hungry. In fact don't you realise that this small amount of food will not get very far between us, you know just how hungry luke gets, he could eat all of this by himself.

Jesus said to them "Bring them here to me." That which you have give it to me. Jesus took that of which they had, and then He Blessed it, and commanded the diciples to give it out. Can you just imagine the disciples thoughts. They knew Jesus was great and they knew better than to protest against Him, but can you imagine the doubt that they had in their minds when they started to give out the small amount of food that they had. They were probably thinking, "Oh well looks like we are going to bed without food again tonight."

The disciples took up twelve baskets full of fragments that remained. What remained over was far more than what was initially given out. Give and you shall receive back, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.

This was truly a great miracle, but apart from that it was a great principle that Jesus taught us. We are to take what we have and give it to Him. Jesus could not have worked this miracle without the initial five loaves and two fish. You have to give something, it does not matter how small and trivial it seems. Bless it. Give it to Jesus to be blessed and then take it and give it out. When you have followed the sequence of take, bless and Give, then it will come back to you and it will come back after not only satisfying ten thousand others, but will return to you multiplied.

What do I have to give? Give of your money, give of your time, give of your food, give of your prayers, but mostly give of your love, for when you spread your love out to those who have none, it will come back to multiplied one hundred fold .