<\/p>\n
When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, \u201cThis is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.\u201d But Jesus said to them, \u201cThey do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0(Matthew 14:15-16)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The multitudes followed Jesus to a deserted place (Matthew 14:13) outside the larger towns of Galilee. This crowd was a mixture of sincere seekers and the casually curious.<\/p>\n
As the day wore on, Jesus saw the crowd was getting hungry, and He said to the disciples:\u00a0You give them something to eat<\/strong>. This challenged both the\u00a0compassion<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0faith<\/em>\u00a0of the disciples. Having already seen Jesus perform a miracle of provision at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11), the disciples had a reason to believe that Jesus could meet the need of thousands of hungry stomachs.<\/p>\n
Both Jesus and the disciples were aware of the\u00a0great multitude<\/strong>\u00a0and their needs. Yet it was the compassion of Jesus (mentioned in Matthew 14:14) and His awareness of the power of God that led Him to go about feeding the multitude.<\/p>\n
The world is hungry, and whether they know it or not, they are hungry for Jesus.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The people are hungry, and the empty religionist offers them some ceremony or empty words that can never satisfy.
\n\u2013 The people are hungry, and the atheists and skeptics try to convince them that they aren\u2019t hungry at all.
\n\u2013 The people are hungry, and the religious showman gives them video and drama and light effects and cutting-edge music.
\n\u2013 The people are hungry, and the entertainer gives them loud, fast action, so loud and fast that they don\u2019t have a moment to think.
\n\u2013 The people are hungry \u2013 who will give them the bread of life?<\/p>\nWith Jesus among them, the people did\u00a0not need to go away<\/strong>\u00a0to have their hunger, their need, satisfied. If these were mostly casual, not-very-committed followers of Jesus and there was no reason for\u00a0them<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0go away<\/strong>\u00a0to receive what they needed, then there is even less reason for committed disciples of Jesus to\u00a0go away\u00a0<\/strong>for true life satisfaction.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there are several reasons \u2013 or maybe excuses \u2013 why people look outside of Jesus for the satisfaction of the deepest needs of in their life. When we feel the pull to set Jesus to the side and meet such needs in other ways, we need to challenge ourselves and think about it.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Circumstances don\u2019t need to make you\u00a0go away<\/strong>. You won\u2019t have things so hard or so easy that you don\u2019t need Jesus.
\n\u2013 There is nothing in Jesus that would make you want to\u00a0go away<\/strong>.
\n\u2013 There is nothing in the future that will make you need to\u00a0go away<\/strong>.<\/p>\nOur needs are satisfied in Jesus, through Jesus, and by Jesus. He may use many instruments, but we thank Him for it all. Don\u2019t\u00a0go away<\/strong> \u2013 go to Jesus. (Guzik)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, \u201cThis is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.\u201d But Jesus said to them, \u201cThey do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.\u201d\u00a0(Matthew … Continue reading “63.d. Matthew 14:15-16”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195618"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195621,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195618\/revisions\/195621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}