ODJ: What You Have

December 21, 2016 

READ: Luke 9:10-17 

Jesus said, “You feed them.” “But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Or are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd?” (vv.13-14).

“You can’t get blood from a rock.” That saying, used sometimes in my part of the world, means that we can’t get f other person or situation what simply isn’t there. For example, I might say, “I can’t get blood from a rock” when I’m trying to collect a debt from someone who doesn’t have the money to repay me. Trying to acquire cash from someone who isn’t capable of providing it is impossible.

The disciples once thought Jesus was trying to “get blood from a rock.”

When He told His disciples to feed a crowd of 5,000 men (along with the women and children who were there with them), the disciples’ response was, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish. . . . Are you expecting us to go buy enough food for this whole crowd?” (Luke 9:13). In other words, their response was, “Jesus, what on earth are You thinking?” Of course, the Savior knew exactly what He was asking. He wanted them to trust that God would use what they had to provide for others and for the situation. God would multiply what they had—it wasn’t about what they didn’t have.

Jesus used the five loaves and two fish, the little the disciples could muster up, to feed over 5,000 people! (v.17).

When we come to Christ, God takes us as we are—our personalities, experiences, skills, wisdom, abilities, disabilities, work, all of our circumstances including our failures—and uses them for His glory (Colossians 3:23). When we offer Him our “five loaves and two fish” in life, He uses who we are and what we possess to nourish others. How it happens, we can’t explain. But He does it.

Use what you have! God will multiply it.

—Marlena Graves

365-day plan: James 3:1-12