Believing Beyond the Bread

Read what the Word says about bread.  It will stimulate your imagination.  Bread is a symbol of sustenance.   Our Lord's model prayer mentions the giving of daily bread by the Father.

The relationship with bread is throughout this section of the Gospels.

Think about these questions as we enter into Mark Chapter 8. . .

Compare the feeding in chapter 8 to the feeding in chapter 6. Beyond the difference in numbers, 4,000 versus 5,000, what are the:


a. Similarities in both feedings?

b. Differences in both feedings?



Look at how Jesus addresses the leaven of the Pharisees in Mark 8:12-16

a. What brings up the matter?

b. Why does Jesus chastise or criticize His disciples about their thoughts on the matter?



"Do you still not understand [who I am]?" (8:17, 21).

a. Why is this question of importance for Jesus’ disciples?
b. Why is it important for us to understand this, too?

Get ready for these and other questions as we go further into the Gospel of Mark this week.  God be with you.

Healed and Helped

⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.- John 5:6-8 (NIV)

Oral Roberts is quoted as sharing how Jesus desires to heal the whole person, not just the part that is ailing them.  Jesus asked the man who laid among many invalids such as the blind and lame did he want to be made well.  He did not ask if the man wanted to get his feet healed or to get help moving into the pool as the angel troubled the water.  No, Jesus asked the man about his desire to be made whole.  Jesus asks this of the lame man by the pool.  The lame man lacked initiative to the point where he did not ask anything of Jesus.  When asked by Jesus, he just went into his sob story about not having anyone to push him into the pool.

Jesus did not ask that.

Despite the man's response, Jesus healed him.  Jesus helped him.  Jesus performed a miracle in the midst of the lame and the sick.  He did so for this man and commanded him to do something for himself, too.

Jesus expects the same of you.  He wants you to get up off your duff and do something.  He's not healing you from your wounds for your own good.  He's not helping you just for the sake of helping you.  I have said it before and I will say it again: God wants something for us and He wants something from us.  Perhaps, some of us are not getting what God wants for us because we are not giving God what He wants from us.

From Eden to Egypt- Day 23

Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”- Genesis 17:15-17(NKJV)

You have keep this in context.  God said what He would do through Abraham and Sarah in their old age, and then. .  . Okay, okay.  Let me say it another way.  God shared how He would bless the man and his wife with a child, even though they both were beyond the years of conception and . . . Maybe I just should say it a different way.  God informed Abraham that He would use Hs supernatural abilities to rid Sarah of her barren reproach, giving Abraham an heir of his own seed, his own blood, his own lineage.  Yeah, that's right about the place that the old man fell on his face.  In worship?  He was in laughter, creating images in our minds of him most probably nearing tears with an ache in his side to go with it.

Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old?

And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?

That's not the most reverent response to God known to man from the sound of it.  Abraham seems to take it a notch above a snicker with outright laughter if we take this at the surface.  Yet, let us not jump on Abraham so fast.  Genesis 18 complicates the matter even further when the Lord appears as three men approaching Abraham one day. 

Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” So he said, “Here, in the tent.” And He said, “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.)  Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”- Genesis 18:9-12 (NKJV)

Just like her husband, Sarah laughed at the idea.  She, too, saw it as an impossibility for her and her husband to rear children at their advanced years of age.  No matter if it is the Almighty God Himself or these three men entertained by Abraham, the idea presented to both husband and wife seems comical and causes both to laugh.

Was it really a laugh? Was it truly laughter? Were they both the same type of laughter?

The same root word is used in our English translation for "laughter" and "laughed," making any distinction or differentiation between the two difficult.  You would think that both were similar if not the same.  Yet, Henry Morris points out in The Genesis Record that Abraham's laughter was "with joy and surprise... not a laugh of doubt." It is different from Sarah's laughter that warrants the rebuke of the Lord in Genesis 18:13.  Morris calls Sarah's laughter "cynical."  Dr. Morris surmises that "her faith needed to be strengthened."

Unlike the interaction with Abraham alone, the theophany in Genesis 18 leads to the Lord questioning Sarah's laughter.  Despite Sarah's denial, the Lord breaks through all of the mess and addresses the child of promise issue again, repeating the promise before both Abraham and Sarah.  Ultimately, He poses the deepest question that could be asked of any believer- whether they need their faith strengthened or not: Is anything too hard for the Lord?

When Enough is Truly Enough

So they all ate and were filled.- Luke 6:42 (NKJV)

Five loaves of bread and two fish were enough. Jesus was the ultimate master of the teachable moment. In fact, the Master went so far as to demonstrate that God has already supplied what we need. He used what resources were available to Him and His disciples, took them and looked up to heaven, blessing and breaking the bread. Then, He did the same with the fish. In the end, it was truly enough for five thousand people to be fed (with fragments left over to fill twelve baskets).

What has Jesus provided for you? Isn't it enough? It probably is more than enough for what He wants you to do. Are you willing to look up to heaven and give thanks for what He has given to you? Are you willing to break it up and share it with others who are in need? Look at what Jesus did with the available resources. He did not wait for Ceasar's stimulus plan. He did not hold out and hold on to see if the government would change policies. He used what He had and made it work for those who were in need of it.

We can learn a real lesson from this simple act of Jesus. Beyond the miracle itself is a simple message of truth. God will provide exactly what we need to get the job done. We have to get on board and be willing to do the work. He has called us. He has supplied us. What are we waiting on?