Today's Gospel

Multiply Your Blessings

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where we are exploring the genius of the Gospel. Today's Gospel is from John 6:1-15. It's one of these experiences where Jesus feeds thousands of people. So as we go into this, maybe to be mindful of how do you need God to feed you today? And then let's be looking for that word, that phrase, that idea to anchor your day in the Gospel. "After this, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias, and a multitude followed Him because they saw the signs which He did on those who were diseased. Jesus went up into the hills, and there He sat down with His disciples. Now, the Passover, the Feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up His eyes, seeing that a multitude was coming to Him, Jesus said to Philip, 'How are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?' This He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.’

Philip answered him, '200 denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.' One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 'There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they among so many?' And Jesus said, 'Make the people sit down.' Now, there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, in number about 5,000. Jesus then took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, He told His disciples, 'Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.' So they gathered them up. 12 baskets of fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign which He had done, they said, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.' Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the hills by himself."

So many things again here. First question that comes to my mind is, what do you need God to multiply in your life? What is it in your life that you think you have too little of, or not enough of, that you need God to multiply in your life? And have you brought the little to Him and asked him to multiply it? The other thing that jumps out here at me today is, they see the greatness of God, they see the greatness of Jesus. They want to make Him a king, and Jesus immediately is like, "Come on, guys, we've got to get out of here." We see this at several points throughout the Gospel. The people only able to conceive of Jesus' greatness as a worldly greatness and desire to make Him a great king or a great spiritual leader in the world. And Jesus has to escape these situations. What do you need multiplied in your life? And in what ways are people maybe trying to put you into worldly positions that God is not calling you to? And like Jesus, you have to withdraw again to the hills by yourself. Have an amazing day. Remember, don't just be yourself, be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be.