“So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.” – John 6:13

This is an extraordinary little detail that’s emphasized in the accounts of a truly remarkable miracle. Jesus began with five small barley loaves – the modest provisions a poor boy had brought for himself. Using that, Jesus created bread in the wilderness to feed thousands and thousands of Jews in a vivid re-enactment of God’s miraculous provision for Israel in the wilderness. After everyone had eaten their fill – not a modest snack but a satisfying meal – then His disciples gathered enough leftovers to fill 12 baskets!

Five small loaves of the kind of bread eaten by the poor became a feast for thousands. This reminds us that our human thinking about what can and can’t be accomplished by God is completely wrong! God isn’t limited by the resources we think we can put together for Him. God owns everything and can create from nothing to accomplish His purpose. Don’t limit your faith to what you can reason out, plan out, or expect to collect. Whatever God is calling His people to do, He will provide the resources.

After the feast, there were more leftovers than there had originally been bread. This is a beautiful reminder that what Jesus does for us, He does in glorious abundance! His grace, His love, His mercy, and His sacrifice – He delights to give those to us in overflowing abundance!

The number of baskets of leftovers isn’t an accident. Twelve is the number of tribes of Israel, the number of Apostles, the number of completeness throughout the Bible. This reminds us that what Jesus does for us, He does for all. His sacrifice, His resurrection, and new life in Him is made available to all and there is grace enough for everyone who will embrace it.

This story isn’t about leftovers because Jesus isn’t a God of scraps and leftovers. Nonetheless, in the leftovers we learn a great deal about the greatness, power, and provision of Jesus Christ for us, our sins, our lives, and the world! #FollowJesus

“But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.” – John 5:36

Faith isn’t meant to be easy. It does require…faith. However, God, in His mercy, has provided so much evidence about who Jesus is that we can be extremely confident in our faith. You don’t have to be a great theologian, you just need to believe in Jesus. Take time to read or re-read the Bible, particularly the Gospel accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These Spirit-inspired eyewitness accounts report critical details that make it clear to the careful reader that Jesus of Nazareth is the Anointed Christ of God and His eternal Son come in the flesh.

From the beginning, the Bible provides the testimony of the prophets who came before Jesus. They promised that God’s Messiah was coming and gave details about how He would be conceived, where He would be born, what He would do, and how He would die and rise from the dead. John the Baptist was explicit that Jesus is the Lamb of God Who would suffer and die to take away the sins of the world. Jesus fulfilled all these prophecies.

In this verse, Jesus points us to His works and says they’re even more convincing. If you harbor any doubts about the divine status of Jesus as God’s eternal Son and the second person of the Trinity, consider the miracles Jesus performed. Who, other than God, can turn water into wine, control storms, wind, and waves, cast out demons without a second thought, heal all manner of diseases, disabilities, and birth defects, raise the dead to life, and resurrect Himself after death? Clearly, Jesus is God, come in the flesh to redeem us from our sins.

Each brilliant teaching and every extraordinary miracle of Jesus is like another brick He used to build a solid, unshakable foundation of faith. Go back through the evidence and read it carefully for yourself. Believe in Jesus, the Lord, the Christ, the eternal sustainer of creation. Then #FollowJesus

“And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”” – Judges 6:13

Have you ever reached the point where you despaired of God’s promises? You knew the words of Scripture but doubted their truth because you felt like God is nowhere to be found? Clearly Gideon had reached that point when the Angel of the Lord appeared to him. He knew that God was with them in theory but years of devastating oppression had led him to deep doubt. How could God be with them? Why would He let bad things happen to His people? How come none of the great miracles of the past were happening anymore?

WE can sound like Gideon at times! The irony of the story is that Gideon was despairing precisely when God had appeared to turn the tide… through him. God had disciplined His people for their unfaithfulness and let them suffer the consequences as He’d promised. Now, He was about to rescue them and the agent of His divine work was full of despair. God had approached Gideon to make him the catalyst for Israel’s rescue and Gideon was discouraged and cynical. Nonetheless, God was about to turn the tide.

God will permit His people to go through long and difficult seasons for many reasons. You may be in one right now. He can do this to guide us to repentance or to build our faith. He may do this as a result of sin or the result of living in fallen world plagued by the sin of others. Don’t despair! God’s promises are rock-solid and His timing is perfect. Often, the moment we’re most tempted to doubt God’s activity, goodness, or presence is precisely when He chooses to reverse the course of events. Don’t despair! As Christians, Jesus promised He is with us and will never forsake us. He won’t! Ever! Rather than give in to gloom and doom, devote yourself increasingly to fervent prayer, confident that when the time is right, God WILL turn things around, perhaps through you! #FollowJesus

“The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)” – John 4:9

When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman it shocked her. It violated social customs related to how men and women related in that time. More importantly, “proper” Jews never talked to Samaritans! To them, the only Good Samaritan was a dead Samaritan. The ethnic and religious differences between them led Jews to view Samaritans with utter contempt. Samaritans were view as something unclean and less than human. This hatred and contempt had fueled centuries of tension and violence.

In those days, the easy thing was simply to go along with these cultural attitudes, assumptions, and behaviors. However, Jesus doesn’t do “the easy thing”. He intentionally breaks those barriers and speaks to those He “shouldn’t”. He went to Samaria with a mission – to talk to this woman. He talked to this woman with a mission – her salvation and that of many of her Samaritan neighbors. Jesus didn’t just bring good news to those ethnically acceptable to His people. Jesus brought good news for every nation and ethnicity! Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead so that a new people could be brought together through the Gospel. A people united in Him in a way the world considers impossible. People who “should” hate each other but instead love one another because Jesus loves them.

Who is a “Samaritans” to you? Who are you reluctant or opposed to talk to, visit with, socialize with, or share the hope of Jesus with? Think carefully, because the world works very hard to divide us from other people made in God’s image. Most of us have Samaritans. What kind of person do you consider to be “them” instead of “us”? Jesus wants His people to cross over and engage with those around us who look different, sound different, act different, or believe different. Those who are different socially, economically, intellectually, or experientially. Those who speak with different accents, eat different food, or hold different citizenships. Those vote different, dress different, or worship different. They all need to know about Jesus and experience His love. Who is a Samaritan to you? Jesus wants you to go meet them. #FollowJesus

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30

John the Baptist was a Big Deal and everyone knew it. He was the first true prophet in Israel in hundreds of years. He was calling people to repent of their sins and crowds were flocking to him! He was the talk of Israel. However, John knew that he was just God’s “opening act”. He had a purpose and that purpose was to prepare people for the coming of God’s Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus.

When John’s followers became concerned and jealous about the rising attention being paid to Jesus, John gave the answer recorded in this verse. It’s the perfect heart attitude of every true follower of Jesus. Jesus must increase. People must look to Him, see Him, believe in Him, be saved by Him, and worship Him. We are His messengers and royal ambassadors. He is the King. We must diminish in stature, pointing people toward Jesus rather than ourselves.

As Christians, we should be humbly, deeply aware that we’ve been forgiven, adopted, and exalted as a gift of God’s grace received only through faith in Jesus. We’ve earned none of the overflowing love God has for us. We must recognize that the life transformation we’ve experienced in Christ has been a work of God’s Spirit rather than our self-discipline. We should learn to be content being enormously loved by God, united with Jesus, and filled with the Holy Spirit. We shouldn’t need to distract or divert people from seeing, hearing about, and believing in Jesus.

As you mature in Christ, are you increasingly content for less and less attention to be paid to you so that more is directed toward Jesus? John showed us the way. Will you follow it? #FollowJesus