How much do you have?

"'How many loaves do you have?' Jesus asked." Matt 15:34a.

My youth pastor Steve Peach shared this with us the other day so I thought I'd jot it down here cos it's a great principle.

We have here the feeding of the four thousand in Matthew 15. As with the feeding of the five thousand the disciples are worried about the amount of food and what they are going to do with the crowd. Jesus has compassion on the people and wants to feed them but the disciples are dumbfounded. They can't imagine where they could get enough resources to feed these people. They are at a loss as to how they can achieve this task with what they have. And so Jesus asks them a simple question; how much do you have? With their little amount, seven loaves and a few small fish in this case, Jesus feeds four thousand people.

How often in our own lives and our situations we see a task ahead of us and we can't figure out how where the resources are going to come from. We know what God wants us to do but we can't see the resources, it seems impossible. But so often God doesn't ask us to provide the resources, he just asks us to do something faithfully. God didn't say to them; go out and buy enough food, he just asked them what they already had. In our lives God often will ask us to do something that we think is impossible. In our situation at church at the moment we have a seemingly impossible job of finding the right leaders for our youth ministry. In some areas we have enough but in other key areas we have none. God isn't necessarily going to provide what we think we need. We don't need to scramble around finding the people power. We need to trust God.

He asked the disciples; how much do you have? They replied and his actions said; we'll use that. And he did. He used what the disciples hd to offer and he made it work...he's God! In our situation at church we're saying God, we don't have enough leaders for our youth. God says how many do you have? We answer and he replies, we'll use that.

In your life what has God asked you to do that you don't have the resources for? Has he asked you to fill a ministry role that you don't feel adequate for? Has he asked you to step out for him in a relationship or a situation that is way out of your comfort zone? He hasn't asked you if you have the resources to do it, he's just asked you to do it. What was your reply? God, I can't. It's too hard. I don't have the skills, I don't have the courage, I don't have the strength. What do you have, he asks? You answer and he says, 'We'll use that.' We'll use that little bit of talent, or that little bit of courage or that little bit of skill.

"How many loaves do you have? We'll use that."

I know...I know...

This is just a quic post as I finish my breakfast and wait for the shower to be free. The other day I read through the letters to the seven churches in the first few chapters of Revelation. Some contain condemnation and warnings, others contain encouragement and praise. But they all start with this line: "I know your deeds." or in the NLT "I know all the things you do." What comfort from this statement, Jesus knows what we're doing. The God of the universe is interested in our lives and he knows everything that we do. That's cool!

Something to ponder...

Revelation 1: 1 NLT "This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him..." I'm reading through the Bible at the moment and I came to Revelation as you do when you're getting near the end. This verse jumped out at me because it was so interesting! The verse from the Gospels saying that onl the Father knows the day or the hour of Christ's return ties in with this. God revealed the prophecy of the end times to Jesus Christ. It says it here in Revelation! Before God revealed this to Jesus, Jesus didn't knw about it. The vision that John recieved, Jesus also recieved at some point in eternity. This distinction in the trinity is astounding! The Godhead who are One, are also distinct individuals to the point where only God knows when these things will come to pass. He revealed what would happen to Jesus, but still only He knows when. Hmm, reading back over this I'm not sure if it will make sense to anyone else what I'm thinking but hey...I thought it was cool! :)

Unintended...

So I was wondering the other day… Did Jesus ever do anything unintentionally? We often do things without thinking. When we go to the shops we go to buy something, not to impact the people that we might meet there. When we go to a friend’s house we usually don’t think about the impact we could have on them or the encouragement we could be to them. Granted, sometimes we do things with intention. As a youth group leader I have conversations with the intention of building a relationship with my leaders or young people. I make phone calls with intention. But not all the time. Often we do things without any missional or ministerial intention. I wonder if Jesus ever did that?
In John 2 he went to the wedding in Cana but he ended up performing his first sign there of turning water into wine. Did he think about that on the way to the party? Did he intentionally go to the wedding with the purpose of fixing their relationship crisis and establishing his identity as the Son of God. Or did he go to have fun and celebrate the wedding but ended up doing all the other things as well because the opportunity arose. Similarly when he visited Mary and Martha, or when he took longer to go back there when Lazarus was sick. All of those things had an affect on the people around him. I don’t think Jesus, during his life of public ministry ever did anything unintentionally. If you read the first couple of chapters of the Gospel of John you see that John recorded Jesus actions day by day. Not a day went by without something significant happening in Jesus’ life. Jesus lived on purpose. He knew why he was here on earth and he knew what he had to do, so he did it. When we know why we’re here and what we have to do, shouldn’t we also live life on purpose?

Quick summary...

In the 15 minutes since I posted the photo and speculated about whether I would blog this year or not, I've decided to blog again. So I'll continue for today at least because I'm playing on my dad's cool laptop while the rest of the family watches TV. So here's a quick review. I'll get the news out of the way so that I can blog interesting things for the rest of the year...

I slid my car into a gutter :( Cost $2340 :( :( :( I'll be paying that off for a while.
I went on a Youth Dimension (with Scripture Union) beach mission called Coffee Shop to North Stradbroke Island. Very beautiful, very tiring, lots of fun, saw God work, very exciting. I'd post photos but I don't have them at the moment.
Got back from there and haven't been doing a whole lot! Been on holidays which is fantastic! Been hanging out with Laura most days, watching TV, watching dvds, going to the movies, going to the beach, eating, eating, eating.
My parents and sister came up from Melbourne so I've been hanging out with them for a bit.
Went to the cricket on Sunday with dad to see Australia lose to South Africa :(
Having a bbq on Saturday night for my 21st, very exciting. Should be fun.
And that's the last month in review!

Long time no post...

Been lazy. Been away. Been on holidays. Did I mention that I've been lazy. I'm just mucking around with photos at the moment so I thought I'd post this one of my girlfriend Laura :) Disclaimer: I may get in trouble for posting this photo, but I like it so I'm going to do it anyway!

Still undecided about whether or not I'll keep blogging this year or not.