Belief or Unbelief?

FOCUS

Mark 6:38-44, 52
38 But He (Jesus) said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”

39 Then He commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in ranks, in hundreds and in fifties. 41 And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all. 42 So they all ate and were filled. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish. 44 Now those who had eaten the loaves were about[c] five thousand men.

52 For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened.

THINK

Here we have the story of Jesus departing into the countryside to get some rest. The people follow him and want to hear more of his teaching. Jesus teaches about God to these people. After a good part of the day had been spent in listening to Jesus, the disciples ask Jesus how they are going to feed all these people because they do not have any food with them to feed all these people. So Jesus asks them to give him what food they do have. They come to Jesus with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus tells the disciples to have the people sit in groups. So the disciples instructs the people to sit in groups of one hundreds and groups of fifties. Jesus takes the loaves and fish and bless the food and breakes it apart. He gives the food fragments to the disciples to distribute to the people. So all the people ate and were full. Then Jesus had the disciples pick up the remains of the food in baskets. They picked up twelve baskets of fish and bread fragments. The disciples counted five thousand men. That doesn't include the number of women and children who were in attendance.
Verse 52 tells us more about this story. The disciples were there and saw the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand with fish and the loaves. Yet we see that they hardened their hearts and did not understand how the miracle took place. They were right in the middle of a miracle, yet they did not understand it or put their trust in Jesus. How many of us are like that? We are in the middle of a situation and the Lord answers us in a miraculous way. Yet we do not acknowledge that the Lord had orchestrasted the miracle. Our hearts are hardened to acknowledge the source of the miracle. Are you able to use your spiritual mind or do you rely upon your carnal mind for answers?

ACT

We need to switch our minds from the carnal reality of this earth and look for our answers in God. The spiritual realm is where we find the anwers to how something miraculous happens. Are you willing to say to God," I don't understand how this happens now, I just know it happens because of YOU."

PRAY

Lord, help me to put a spiritual spin on things that happen to me rather than depend on my carnal mind. Lord, open my eyes to see and my ears to hear what you have for me. I put my faith in YOU and only YOU. Amen.

OTHER NOTES

" All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing "
Edmund Burke