629 Bring Them Here To Me - Matthew 14:18

Do you want to see Jesus do a miracle? There's a key step that's involved. Let's talk about it. 

Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks again for joining me on the Follower of One Podcast.  Today, our Marketplace Mission Trip is going on too and our message for today is to make time for others.

I want to talk a little bit about how Jesus works with our stuff: with our time and our money and our resources. Our verse for today is Matthew 14:16-18, and primarily it's verse 18, 

"But Jesus said, 'They do not go away. You give them something to eat.' They said to him, 'We have only five loaves here and two fish.' And he said, 'Bring them here to me.'" 

That's from the English Standard Version. When you bring the five loaves and the two fish to Jesus, He works miracles. But the key is, we have to bring them to Him. You have to give away our lunch to feed 5,000 people.

 I don't know about you, but I don't give things away easily. I want to give things away, easier. When we give something away because Jesus prompted us, it's an opportunity for us to see Jesus' work. It's an opportunity for us to see a miracle take place. 

Here they saw a tremendous miracle. They saw Jesus break, five loaves of bread and two fish over and over and over again until 5,000 people were fed. And there were 12 baskets of food left over; one basket for each disciple. It's interesting to me that Jesus does things like this, where He reminds us,  "If you give me a little of your time, I will multiply it. If you give me a little of your money, I will multiply it." 

I don't believe that means that he's going to make us wealthy enough to have our own jet airplane. But I do believe that He may feed 5,000 people with our five loaves and two fish. Jesus takes the things that we bring to Him and He uses them. 

And I also want to differentiate a little bit for much of my life as a Christian,  I've attended churches, where we thought you had to have people come to church and walk down an aisle to become followers of Jesus.

All we need to do is introduce people to Jesus, right where we are. We can bring people to Jesus too by the way we live. And that's what we talk about Follower of One. 

And even if He doesn't multiply it back to me, if I can give it away again tomorrow, and if I can give it away again the next day, eventually I will see God work. I will see these miracles and I will receive payment in joy and in peace. And in my lifestyle, I will receive things that you just can't buy, when I give things away. 

I want to challenge us today. Let's be people who bring others to Jesus and we bring our stuff to Jesus and we let him put it to work. Thanks for being a marketplace minister. And thanks for listening to our podcast. If you've never been on one of our Marketplace Mission Trips, I would like to encourage you to go check out our online community.

Things are taking off there. More and more people are joining the online community every day, taking part in the Marketplace Mission Trips, and it's a chance for us to integrate our faith into what we do every day, whatever our job is. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Check us out at https://followerofone.org or you can go ahead and sign up and join the online community at https://communitydotfollowerofone.org. Thanks very much.