Devotion for 17 April

A brief prayer is offered that you can add to your daily prayers this week. The scripture is from our Sunday Service Bulletin for 17 April 2016. Today we continue a multi-part sermon on the miracle of feeding the 5000. The concluding thought in the devotion comes from the LSB footnotes pp1668.

GOSPEL READING Mark 6:35-40 (English Standard Version)

³⁵ And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. ³⁶ Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” ³⁷ But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” ³⁸ And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” ³⁹ Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. ⁴⁰ So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. ⁴¹ And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. ⁴² And they all ate and were satisfied. ⁴³ And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. ⁴⁴ And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

Devotion: All in a Day’s Work

Jesus has been teaching the multitudes all afternoon and now it is growing late. The disciples wanted Jesus to dismiss all the throng so that the crowd could get some food before it was too late. Jesus saw this as a teachable moment on discipleship, and tried to get His disciples to help feed the crowd. Instead of asking Jesus to provide, they calculated how much food they would need to buy. A denarius was the wages of a day laborer so 200 denarii is almost a year’s wages. Knowing they did not have that much money it looked hopeless to the disciples. Mark does not say exactly how the multiplication of the loaves and fishes happened but it must have been in Jesus hands somehow.  By performing this miracle, Jesus was demonstrating that God will provide if we have faith and rely on Him. When we face problems such as inadequate resources to get things done, is our first reaction to ask God for help? Today’s text shows us that He treats his flock with compassion and provides for every need of body and soul. Let our first reaction to a challenge be to turn to Him for help.

We pray: “Lord, you are awesome! Help us continue to rely on you for our needs. Amen”