Faith building message from Sunday..."don't leave Jesus out of the equation!" (Gospels, messages)
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Yesterday my pastor's sermon was on the very familiar story in the Gospels about the fish and loaves and feeding the 5000. He said it was, in fact, the only story which is covered in some detail in all 4 of the gospels. It was just a good message, a reminder to us that sometimes we forget what can happen "when Jesus is added to the equation."
The disciples began to calculate whether they could feed that crowd with their own resources and came up woefully short, neglecting to factor in the Lord's provision. In other words, we err when we assess the difficulty of our situation based solely on our natural resources to deal with it. Many times we have experience which has shown us time and time again how God has helped us, but we tend to forget about this and just look only to our own ability to cope... and end up in discouragement and despair many times.
My pastor related this to all kinds of situations in our lives... obviously financial provision, but other things as well. Really, anything we find ourselves up against.
Just thought I would share this as hopefully an encouragement to any of you who are struggling this morning...
"If I can't handle it, send it up to God" ...Works all the time for me After I do that, all I have to do is wait patiently and follow my instincts.(Little messages that he plants in my soul)
Good message, kaykay! And so true.. If we try to do everything on our own, we will not get the right results... and like you said, will become discouraged.
Sometimes we see in front of us very little,but the Lord when we turn to Him and put our trust in Him and pray He will give us back exponentially.We as individuals can not do it on our own and when we think we can we struggle and become frustrated whereby it becomes a hopeless situation
Another aspect to the story (which I don't have in front of me) was that Jesus said He asked them what to do in order to test them. In other words, it seems that He perhaps thought that they should already know to not just look at the natural because of what the Lord had done before in situations.
Another aspect to the story (which I don't have in front of me) was that Jesus said He asked them what to do in order to test them. In other words, it seems that He perhaps thought that they should already know to not just look at the natural because of what the Lord had done before in situations.
I think he was asking them look at their faith and observe its growth..IMO faith is useless unless it is growing..Maybe Jesus was not testing them, but wanted them to test their faith
I think he was asking them look at their faith and observe its growth..IMO faith is useless unless it is growing..Maybe Jesus was not testing them, but wanted them to test their faith
Yes, I think that is the implication. My pastor observed that God tests us not to "fail us" but in order to "approve us."
thanks kaykay I believe I needed reminding of this very thing myself.
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