Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Proverbs 14-15
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 8:2-5
Jesus: These people have been with Me for three days without food. They’re hungry, and I am concerned for them. If I try to send them home now, they’ll faint along the way because many of them have come a long, long way to hear and see Me.
Disciples: Where can we find enough bread for these people in this desolate place?
Jesus: How much bread do we have left?
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
I like the stories of Jesus feeding the crowds. They are great examples of His ability to create something out of nothing. It shows His power as the Son of God, part of the triune Godhead. It demonstrates that He has the same creative power present at the beginning of all things. It gives us evidence that He is God incarnate when He takes the few loaves of bread and the few fish available and feeds thousands.
The stories also tell us of Jesus’ compassion for those to whom He ministers. He not only cares about their illnesses, their diseases, the demons that possess their bodies and minds, but He also cares about their simple everyday physical comforts. He cares about their hunger, their rest, their thirst. Jesus is interested in every aspect of our lives and the stories told by the gospel writers show us just how much God loves us in the events they share with us in the pages of the Bible.
This story of the feeding of the multitude is probably a familiar one, once again, but again I find a couple of words that are easy to miss if you don’t look for them. Just at the beginning of Jesus’ comments to His disciples He makes this observation, “These people have been with Me for three days without food… .” Did you catch that?
When is the last time you went without food for three days? I remember the last time I did, but it wasn’t because I meant to. I was sick and couldn’t eat. I was very ill, didn’t know what was wrong with me for a while, and couldn’t eat until the doctors figured out first, what it was, and second, if they needed to do surgery or not. Everything worked out okay, but those were a long three days without food.
Perhaps you’ve been on one of those, not on purpose kinds of three day fasts. Or maybe you’ve engaged in a purposeful three day fast. I must admit, It’s been a very long time since I’ve done that. Something I should probably do again if my health permits.
But let’s go back to Jesus’ words. “These people have been with Me for three days without food…” Later we’ll learn there were thousands that were fed. That’s thousands that joined in on that voluntary three day fast because they wanted to hear what Jesus had to say. They wanted to be part of His healing and teaching and preaching ministry. They didn’t want to miss a single word of what came out of His mouth. So they stuck around for three days without eating.
Now here’s a question for you, when is the last time you stuck around a church service for three days without food? In fact, when is the last time you stuck around a church service for three days? In fact, when is the last time you heard about any church service that lasted three days straight without a break? I still remember the two-week revivals that sometimes extended an extra two or three days because of what was happening in those services, but they stopped something during the night and everyone went home until service started the next night. Not many people came to those services hungry either.
But for Jesus’ ministry at this occasion, thousands stayed with Him without food for three days. Now that is a revival service. What would it take to have that kind of impact on a community again? How could we engage the hearts and minds of those around us to interest them enough to not only grab their attention and get them to come to listen, but then to keep them for three days because they’re afraid they might miss something if they left? What kind of service would you need to conduct to make people willing skip breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three days because of the Spirit of God they feel all around them?
Good questions, aren’t they? We have a hard time getting people to stay long enough to miss the kickoff on television even though they could program their DVR so they don’t miss it and fast forward through commercials. We have a hard time getting people to commit to a prayer breakfast on a Saturday morning because they would have to mow the lawn later in the day or miss their favor tee-box time. We have a hard time getting people to listen to a sermon that’s more than 20 minutes long because that’s more than two television commercial breaks.
What does it take to get people to come and listen and stay? It starts with me and you begin so tuned into God and His will that we can’t help but pour out His love to everyone we see. When others really see Jesus in us, they will stick around just like those thousands that followed the Master 2,000 years ago.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.