The boy only had five loaves and two fish! In our Lord’s hands it was enough to feed the multitudes. He blessed it and broke it first, then He performed His awesome miracle and fed 5000 people. Whatever you have today is enough! In the Lord’s hands you might be amazed at what He can do with it.
Don’t be surprised if He blesses it and breaks it first. Ya see, He uses broken things to multiply His Kingdom! When you feel you have nothing but brokenness to offer, that’s when you have everything to give.♥
“Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then He gave them to His disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.” Mark 6: 41
“The number of men who had eaten were five thousand.” Mark 6:44
“For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.”
I Peter 2: 11-17
“Dear friends I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even when they accuse you of doing wrong they will see your honorable behavior and they will give honor to God when He judges the world. For the Lord’s sake respect all human authority—whether the king as head of state or the officials he has appointed. For the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and to honor those who do right. It is God’s will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves. So don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Respect everyone and love your Christian brothers and sisters. Fear God and respect the King.”
Peter’s letter was written in Rome and was motivated by severe trials that Christians in Northern Asian Minor were suffering. He writes to God’s elect/ believers, referring to them as aliens or strangers passing through in this world 2:11. He urges them and us to submit to authority and to abstain from sin and fleshy desire. To live in humble righteousness and live in such a way that even when unbelievers or other believers accuse us of wrongdoing, our doing the “right” thing will silence their foolish and ignorant prattle. We are free in Christ! How then do we choose to use our freedom? To serve “self”? To benefit “self”? To give a false impression by wearing a mask of righteousness, thereby deceiving and ultimately destroying “self” on the downward spiral to sin and ruin. That is surely where misuse of our freedom will take us and very quickly. To abuse freedom will ironically usher us into bondage as we becomes slaves to sin. That is not God’s desire for us, but rather He desires that we use our freedom in Christ, found in our salvation, to serve Him; How? By living righteous, selfless and humble lives, before God and man. By making right choices, doing good, loving others, fearing God, and honoring authority?
As believers then, who trust in God, we must use our freedom to glorify Him by doing the right thing. If we make this a practice in all areas of our lives and in all actions and behavioural patterns then it doesn’t matter what others say about us or accuse us of.
Let’s be challenged by Peter’s words here and make right choices to do the right thing. To live honourable, godly lives without compromise! No compromise in our daily spiritual walk with the Lord, is a sure fire way to silence the foolish prattle of our accusers as it, at the same time, fashions us into vessels fit for the Lord’s service. As we use our freedom to serve Him, our example becomes His method of bringing others into the Light and knowledge of His Truth.
OUR GOD IS AN
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GOD !!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!
This came as an email this morning and brought back memories of the old clothesline. I was a kid back in the day and for me back then it was just mom hanging the clothes out to dry every Monday. To her it wasn’t just protocol that Monday morning was washday with the old wringer washer, but it was a precise operation with rules to follow from start to finish! As a kid it meant nothing other than clean clothes to wear, but who even thinks of that as a kid? There are so many things we take for granted in this life. I still remember coming home from school to find stiff, frozen clothes hanging in the living room to thaw before being tended to. After all, they were too stiff to work with. To mom it was all in a day’s work! To me it was just another boring, Monday washday and to the adult neighborhood that clothesline was almost like the small town weekly newspaper that told many tales!
For The Fun Of It
THE BASIC RULES FOR CLOTHESLINES: (If you don’t even know what clotheslines are, better skip this.)
1. You had to hang the socks by the toes… NOT the top.
2. You hung pants by the BOTTOM/cuffs… NOT the waistbands.
3. You had to WASH the clothesline(s) before hanging any clothes -walk the entire length of each line with a damp cloth around the lines.
4. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang “whites” with “whites,” and hang them first.
5. You NEVER hung a shirt by the shoulders – always by the tail! What would the neighbors think?
6. Wash day on a Monday! NEVER hang clothes on the weekend, or on Sunday, for Heaven’s sake!
7. Hang the sheets and towels on the OUTSIDE lines so you could hide your “unmentionables” in the middle (perverts & busybodies, y’know!)
8. It didn’t matter if it was sub-zero weather… clothes would “freeze-dry.”
9. ALWAYS gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left on the lines were “tacky”!
10. If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item did not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next washed item.
11. Clothes off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready to be ironed. IRONED??!! Well, that’s a whole OTHER subject!
A clothesline was a news forecast,
To neighbours passing by,
there were no secrets you could keep,
When clothes were hung to dry.
It also was a friendly link,
For neighbours always knew
if company had stopped on by,
To spend a night or two.
For then you’d see the “fancy sheets”,
And towels upon the line;
you�d see the “company table cloths”,
With intricate designs.
The line announced a baby’s birth,
From folks who lived inside,
as brand new infant clothes were hung,
So carefully with pride!
The ages of the children could,
So readily be known
by watching how the sizes changed,
You’d know how much they’d grown!
It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
then nightclothes, and a bathrobe too,
Haphazardly were strung.
It also said, “On vacation now”,
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, “We’re back!” when full lines sagged,
With not an inch to spare!
New folks in town were scorned upon,
If wash was dingy and gray,
as neighbours carefully raised their brows,
And looked the other way.
But clotheslines now are of the past,
For dryers make work much less.
Now what goes on inside a home,
Is anybody’s guess!
I really miss that way of life,
It was a friendly sign
When neighbours knew each other best…
By what hung on the line.
It’s easier to defeat an external enemy than it is to manage an internal one. We can rebuke, walk away from, cold shoulder, and ignore the external giving the illusion that we’re in control; not saying it’s right but it is how we deal with many that have hurt us or caused us pain. In the big picture though, It still boils down to that ego inside and that inner selfishness, arrogance and pride that has it’s cold, icy fingers wrapped around us. Yeahhh…Well, that’s a different story! Oh if we could only rebuke it! Cold shoulder it and walk away leaving it in a heap of rubble, life would be grand. However it’s a bigger beast to take on and we are powerless to fight it off as over and over again it resurfaces to defeat us!
God delivered His people out of Egypt , but He had a more difficult time taking Egypt out of His people. Oh they were okay for a short while until food got scarce, then their minds wandered back to Egypt and the pots filled with meat and bread…all they could eat. They had been set free of bondage and set on a new journey to their promised land but they weren’t free at all because Egypt, in their past bondage, still captivated their minds. They spoke out against their leadership in Moses and Aaron. They complained about their hardships! They complained of the manna that God was so gracious to provide and thought only of the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic that were plentiful back in their bondage. They remembered the delicacies of their table rather than the misery of their slavery! Do you go there? Back to comfort zone of your old life style simply because it’s too difficult to move forward?
How much do thankless spirits, passions for self – preservation and “dates with the world” motivate to sin in thought, word and deed? In our quest for pleasure and safe keeping, we can miss the spiritual mark of God’s salvation, preservation and abundant life, where instead of gaining, we lose it all. G. K. Chesterton once said, “How much larger life would be if “self” could become smaller in it.
Take a look at your heart to see if Egypt still resides within. Do the old ways of sin that held you in bondage still have a lure to take you back there to it’s dreadful prison of torment?
True freedom is found only Christ. He died for you to allow you to make the break from the old past ~ “the slavery of Egypt” possible in your life. In His will is perfect freedom and all the sweet manna that life has to offer through abundant life, while living here on this earth. Bonus ~ along with that salvation, is our guaranteed entry into the promised land and haven of rest when this life is over!
Exodus 16: 8
So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “The Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and bread to satisfy you in the morning, for He has heard all your complaints against Him.”
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 