Thinking Like Jesus

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

THINKING LIKE JESUS

John 6:1-15

6:1 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Feast was near. 5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?"  6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 9 "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" 10 Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. 12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted."  13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. 14 After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

NIV

The feeding of the five thousand is recorded in all four of the gospels and the others include more details than John does and perhaps that is why he leaves some of those details out as he is the last one to write a gospel account. Nevertheless, the point of this event is that Jesus provides in abundance. It is a miracle enough that he fed five thousand men, and that must have meant there were more than five thousand as there had to be some woman with their children who were with their husbands. But because we are not in our modern times of equality, only the men were counted. We know this from the other accounts as again John does not give us the detail as to how many were in the great crowd. There is something else going on here also in that Jesus tested Phillip. Why would he do that? Why would Jesus even think Phillip would come up with the idea that He could just produce enough food for so many? Does Jesus test our faith? Does he want us to believe he can do whatever it is that needs to be done? Does he want us to believe he can provide when that is no other way? What we have to know by now is the character of God. From the very beginning when he placed Adam and Eve in the garden, he gave them everything they would ever need. However, sin ruined their position, their relationship with Him. Because of sin, they were cast out and now by the sweat of his brow, Adam would have to toil the ground for his sustenance. Mankind has been doing that ever since, but something changed some two thousand years ago. Jesus came and took our sin away, and if we believe that, if we accept what he did for us then our relationship with God has been restored. So then what does that mean? It seems it would make sense that God would once again provide us all we need, but Jesus shows us not only all we need but even more then we need. There were leftovers after the people eat their full. God’s character has not changed, but it seems we, his creation, has changed. We are still toiling the ground by the sweat of our brow and thinking we have to provide all our needs. Yes, we do have to work, we cannot just sit in our duffs and wait for God to deliver groceries to our door. But what did those people who were following Jesus doing? Jesus had them sit on their duffs while he provided for them. This is a conundrum. Where do we draw the line between our efforts and believing Jesus? Personally, we know Jesus has provided for us in so many ways, including directing us to certain places of work when we had no work. Still, while we had no work, we did not go without because Jesus found a way to provide for our needs. Jesus has healed us when doctors said they could not. Jesus has given us a place to live when we did not have anything to obtain it on our own. Still, we struggle to believe at times. Still, we want to look to ourselves, but we know Jesus provides. We only have to believe. Yet, did those people believe, that great crowd that Jesus was going to feed all of them without them seeing provisions that large in sight? What were they expecting? Sure they believed in him because they saw him do other miracles, but to come up with enough food to feed them might have been a stretch for their faith. But the fact remains Jesus provided for them in abundance and why should we believe any different for us. Our faith is required and our faith is proportioned out by God, as he said he gives every man a measure of faith. It does not matter what the measure is, and knowing God does not show favoritism we have to believe he measures out the same amount of faith for everyone and Jesus said we only need as much faith as a grain of mustard seed. That is almost so small one can barely see it in the palm of our hand. So it is not about how much faith we have, it is about letting the faith work within. Doubt can swallow up faith. Allowing the influence of the world can cover up that faith. We need to stop thinking like the world thinks and think like Jesus thinks.