Abundance or Scarcity

By Cal Cook

There are several teaching points here for our application:

Even though Philip had been there for the turning of water into wine, he was still unable to see beyond the physical limitations before him. The Gospel of Matthew has this event happening after the disciples return from their missionary journey, where they had cast out demons and healed the sick and lame in Jesus’ name…why was the feeding of the crowd seen as an obstacle to them? Why was Philip after seeing Jesus’ power over the material world, having even exercised power himself in the name of Jesus stuck back in this world of scarcity this world of limitations?

* Isn’t it the same way with us? We have times when we feel especially close to Christ, we sense His presence and our faith is strengthened. Yet later why cry “God where are you” and we even doubt His love for us or even His existence!

* The heart is a fickle thing! We struggle to even understand it sometimes…

The boy with the 5 loaves and 2 small fish gave all that he had to Jesus. Whether it was his lunch or his families lunch, or lunch for him and his friends it was all he had…and it wasn’t much! But Jesus used that little bit to feed a multitude! 5000 men…maybe 15,000 or 20,000 people were fed with what this boy had to offer!

* How many times do we say, “what I have isn’t much.” how many times do we say, “this is all that I have.”?

* Instead of seeing the abundance we have in Christ, we see the scarcity we have in this world.