Matthew chapter fifteen describes the miracle of Jesus feeding a multitude of followers with just seven loaves and two fish. Although the miracle is rightfully the centerpiece of the passage, one thing that also stands out is that the people had been following Jesus for three entire days, without anything to eat. The multitude so hungered after Christ that they suppressed their physical hunger, focusing only on the spiritual bread of His teaching. Another interesting part of the story is that Jesus waited three whole days before feeding them. No doubt, he could have fed them earlier, but He divinely chose to wait until they were about to depart and needed strength for their journey.
As I considered the timing of Jesus’ supplying their physical needs, I began to think of applications to our lives today. First, He supplied their physical needs after He met their spiritual needs. The multitude was so hungry for the Lord, that they disregarded their own desires and focused only on Him. In like manner, we must possess a single-minded desire for God. He must be our focus and priority. We should desire for the Lord to feed us spiritually more than provide for us physically. As Job expressed, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” We often miss God’s miracle in our lives because we do not have burden for Him above all else. Second, the people had to deny themselves, and be diligent about abiding with Christ; otherwise they would not have seen the miracle. If a member of the crowd had decided they were too hungry and left on the second day, they would have missed the miracle entirely. In our lives, we must also stay faithful in following the Lord if we want to see His miracle. If we allow ourselves to falter or turn back from following Him, we will not see His blessings. Even if we have physical needs that God does not seem to be meeting, we cannot allow them to distract us from following after Christ. Surely, if we are faithful in abiding with Him, He will provide for us in His time. Lastly, although Jesus was concerned about their physical needs, those needs were secondary to His desire to feed them spiritually. We often expect the Lord to have the same urgency to meet our physical needs as we do. However, God may have spiritual lessons He needs to teach us before He provides for our flesh. God’s priorities are spiritual not carnal. He does indeed have compassion on us, and He promised to meet our needs, but He did not promise that we would always be comfortable, basking in all manner of physical blessings. However, if we keep our desire wholly on Him, focusing first on the spiritual food Christ has for us, He will surely meet our physical needs and we might well even see a miracle.
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