35 Late in the day, his disciples came to him and said, “This is an isolated place, and it’s already late in the day. 36 Send them away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy something to eat for themselves.” 37 He replied, “You give them something to eat.” But they said to him, “Should we go off and buy bread worth almost eight months’ pay and give it to them to eat?” 38 He said to them, “How much bread do you have? Take a look.” After checking, they said, “Five loaves of bread and two fish.” 39 He directed the disciples to seat all the people in groups as though they were having a banquet on the green grass. 40 They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 He took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them, broke the loaves into pieces, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 Everyone ate until they were full. 43 They filled twelve baskets with the leftover pieces of bread and fish. 44 About five thousand had eaten. (Mark 6:35-44, CEB)
The disciples wanted to send the people away. Maybe they really were worried about them getting something to eat, or maybe they were just done being around people. But they wanted Jesus to tell the people to disperse and go get something to eat. But Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.”
Now I am writing this devotion during June, and it is Pride month and I remember seeing just a few days ago a meme that said something to the effect, the church should be less worried about who is sleeping together in a bed and more concerned with helping people get a bed to sleep in. Are we more concerned with people having basic human needs or with who is sleeping with who? Jesus told us to love. And when we love we meet basic needs.
We feed.
We cloth.
We offer shelter.
It really isn’t that hard. Jesus gave us grace, mercy, and love to share. Let’s share it.
Love People. Love God.
aSacredRebel 