Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Matthew chapter 14, verse 19, when Matthew's telling us the story of Jesus feeding over 5,000 people.

He says that Jesus ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to

heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the

disciples gave them to the crowds. So amidst so much that's awesome in this passage, I think about what just happened when Jesus

asked for the Father's blessing, multiplication on this food, but then the role that Jesus had for

the disciples to play in this miracle. If the point of the story was just to show us Jesus's supremacy,

then Jesus could have called down bread from heaven right into people's laps. The people would

have seen, maybe even recognized him more so as the God who provides food from heaven.

But instead, he prays, asked for the Father's blessing, and then he calls

the disciples to his side. He doesn't just give out one piece of bread here or there. Instead,

he gives the bread to the disciples, and they distribute it. Now, we're not told how this miracle took place. Our imagination, at least mine does,

just starts to wander as we think about how five lows suddenly or slowly, however, began to

multiply from his hands into their hands. But that's the picture. The hands of Christ,

serving the hands of his disciples, and in the hands of those disciples serving the crowds. The hands of Christ serving the hands of his disciples and in the hands of those

disciples serving the crowds. And that is a powerful picture. Jesus showing his grace and power

to this crowd through his disciples. These disciples were an extension of his mercy and his power at work in the lives

of these men and women. So you think about that. In your life today, my life today, we are surrounded

by people with needs, with deep needs, deeper than even just for a meal. People with needs for love and people with

needs for mercy and for hope and for joy and for satisfaction. We're surrounded by people. And we have

a God who is able to meet all of those needs,

whose resources are far beyond what we could ever need,

...