May 4, 2013 … Way More!

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2013 - Day 124

Passage of the Day: Mark 6: 37a [in the context of verses 36-40] [NLT] ……  
35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and it is getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy themselves some food.” 37 But Jesus said, “You feed them.” … “With what?” they asked. “It would take a small fortune to buy food for all this crowd!” 
38 “How much food do you have?” He asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” 
39 Then Jesus told the crowd to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40So they sat in groups of fifty or a hundred. 
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 Contextual Study of today’s passage: Mark, Chapter 6 [NLT] … Go to this link … 
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Reference Passage #1: Ephesians 3: 19-20: [God’s portion is “way more” than we can imagine.] … [NKJV] …  
19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20 Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. 

 My Journal for Today: Don’t you just love the story of Jesus feeding the thousands on that hillside near Capernaum found in Luke 14, Mark 6 (today’s passage linked above), and John 6. It’s a story that really stretches our imagination – and our faith – to the limits of our comprehension. And that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? Having just given His followers a magnanimous lesson in the values of God’s Kingdom (i.e, the “sermon on the mount”), Jesus needed a “WAY MORE” miracle to illustrate just how much God loves His people and just how far He’s willing to go to meet their [our] needs.

The Apostle Paul also reflected on this WAY MORE love and our need to have WAY MORE faith in the passage from Ephesians 3 which came to my mind as I was meditating on the fish-feeding episode from the Gospels. So, often, like Jesus’ inner 12 Disciples, we have a WAY LESS faith; and because of it, in our rational minds we can’t even imagine that God wants to do so much more – WAY MORE – that we could ever imagine.

So, I’m challenged today to stretch my faith and think about where I might be able to feed thousands with just a WAY MORE faith to accomplish God’s WAY MORE Kingdom purposes. I’m afraid that all too often I have a WAY LESS vision of what God could (or can) do in my life.

My Prayer for Today … Forgive me Lord for my WAY LESS faith; … help me to grow to believe that you want so much more – WAY MORE – for Your Kingdom from me. … Amen