12-01-08

GIVE YOUR BREAD AND FISHES, AND BE WONDERFULLY BLESSED

Dear brothers and sisters, God bless you. May I tell you a true story as best I recall. I knew a man once, a brother in the Lord, and perhaps still do, who a few years back, preached a gospel message and fed a gathering of homeless men and women in a downtown city park. At the conclusion of the message, many men and women happily received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and one of those homeless men spoke a special request to the man of God. “Do you have a bicycle? I need a bicycle.” Well now the man of God was pleased with the turnout, was pleased with the message, was pleased with the food, was pleased with the salvations, but he was a little taken aback by this man’s request… because immediately upon hearing it, the Lord had said to him in His quiet inner voice, “Give him your bike.” (Has something like this ever happened to you? It has to me.) I said that the man of God was a little taken aback, because he loved his bike, and had spent many enjoyable hours riding it, getting to know it, and tending to its every need; he had carefully dressed it up with fresh paint and it was all sparkling, well-oiled, and shined in the sun. But after just a momentary hesitation, the man of God said “Yes, I have a bike. You wait here in the parking lot and I’ll drive right home and get it.”

Now after he had gone all the way home, and somewhat sadly, and very gently, loaded his dearly loved bike into the car, and was driving back on the way to the parking lot, the man of God was thinking “Yes God, I’m going to give him my bike...” and he could not help but also think - parenthetically, because the submerged thought irresistibly kept popping up, “…but I hope he got tired of waiting and is not there,” realizing at the same time, of course, that he should not be thinking that way, but he loved his bike, and the reality is that none of us is quite perfect, yet. And as he pulled into the empty parking lot, immediately seeing no-one there, his heart skipped a quick beat… and then faltered as he saw the man, standing there in the midst, waiting for his bike.

A bit of time passed, and one day as the man of God and I were talking, I not then knowing all the preceding, he asked me about something that had been weighing heavily upon his mind, “What do you think about starting a bike ministry for poor and homeless persons?” And I replied that I thought it a good idea, certainly worthwhile and needful, but that our Rescue Mission facility was too small to accommodate the storage necessary for a fairly large ministry such as that. And we continued our fellowship on into other ministerial matters.

Well, the man of God went back to his church, and “was moved” to start a bike ministry, acquiring old used broken down bicycles, fixing them, oiling them, and painting them that they shine in the sun. J  And now, after just a very few years, prompted by the initial sacrifice of something close to the man of God’s heart, a sacrifice so dear that it hurt to give, the Lord our God has multiplied that one bicycle given to one homeless person into over 3,600 bicycles (three thousand six hundred bicycles) that the man of God has given, so far, to thousands of homeless men, women, and children. Isn’t God great? Praise God. Hallelujah!

Dear brothers and sisters, do you see by this living example how God works in and through the lives of willing men and women? First God tells us what to do to serve His people: if we obey Him and do it, then He multiplies what we have done. If we do not obey Him, then of course nothing happens.

The principles of this pattern of godly giving-living (these two are inseparable from God’s point-of-view) were clearly laid before us when Jesus Christ accepted the personal sacrifice of five loaves and two fishes from His obedient disciples (you and I) and wonderfully multiplied that sacrifice “And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.” (Mat 14:21). May we note some interesting and relevant symbolism in the sacrifice that the disciples made. The “bread” represents the disciples’ daily sustenance, the objects and things that we own, i.e., food, money, clothing, cars, or a bicycle, etc., etc., which may be summarized when they are sacrificially given as donations (things external to our selves), and the “fishes” (in the Bible, we are the fish) represent our bodies (our selves), which we are commanded to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Rom 12:1). We are in obedience to this command of our Lord whenever we volunteer in His service, here at our Rescue Mission and elsewhere as He leads.

Now please note how obedience and blessings go hand-in-hand. If the disciples had not first given up, sacrificed, their personal possessions of bread and fishes, when Jesus commanded them to “Bring them hither to me” (Mat 14:18), nothing more would have happened to the multitude for they would have remained hungry and not blessed, and nothing more would have happened to the disciples for they would have remained uneducated and not blessed. However, because of their obedience to Jesus Christ in sacrificing their bread and fishes, the disciples received a spiritual blessing, the blessing of understanding the biblical principles of godly giving-living, taught by example.

If the multitude had not obeyed Jesus when He commanded them “to sit down on the grass” (Mat 14:19), do you suppose they would have been blessed with the food? I think not. Nothing, no blessings, would then or now be bestowed upon disobedient people, i.e., no food. However, because of their obedience to Jesus Christ in sitting down, the multitude received a physical blessing. Which blessing would you prefer?

This pattern of godly giving-living was repeated for the certainty of your instruction when Jesus accepted the sacrifice of the “seven loaves and the fishes” (Mat 15:36) from His disciples and multiplied that sacrifice “And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children.” (Mat 15:38).

And this biblical pattern of godly giving-living is being repeated right here before your very eyes at this Rescue Mission. This year, our relatively small organization is on schedule to give away $1,000,000 (one million dollars) worth of food, PHYSICAL BLESSINGS, to the hungry “multitude” of Pinellas County. Funded by your donations, this represents an approximate increase ratio of 10 to 1; or, your donations have been “multiplied” tenfold by God. Each dollar that you sacrificially give to this Rescue Mission is multiplied by ten in terms of purchasing power. If you donate $100, that $100 will allow us to feed the multitude of hungry men, women, and little children $1,000 worth of food. And that is only the food benefit. How about the 280 lost souls, SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS, that have been saved so far this year from the pit of Hell, and the myriad beneficial effects of the 18 different social service programs that we maintain in our daily operation for the thousands of impoverished families and homeless persons that come into our (yours and mine) Rescue Mission every year? And how about the showers and free clean clothes and telephone use and address use and the Christian counseling the and daily church services, and of course our outreach ministerial programs to The Wagon Wheel Flea Market, Pinellas County Jail, and Pinellas Hope? A part of the blessings forthcoming from all the latter is yours, because of your prayers and sacrificial donations. Thank you. God bless you.

Dear brothers and sisters, the Christmas holiday is upon us and we would like to invite you to help us celebrate the Lord’s birthday. Now according to different opinions, it may not be His actual birth date; nevertheless, it is the date that the majority of Christians have uniformly chosen to honor and worship and glorify Him. Let us do so with gladness in our hearts and in the spirit of happiness and joy. You are invited to attend our annual Christmas dinner to be served here at our Rescue Mission on Christmas day at 1:00pm. We shall be joyfully serving a delicious meal to the rapidly growing number of impoverished families and homeless persons living in Pinellas County. Volunteers (“present your bodies a living sacrifice”) should arrive around noon for registration and a brief orientation tour of our facility. Please remember that the giving life is a Christian life. Help somebody this Christmas as the Lord Jesus has helped you. Make someone happy. Share your joy. God bless you. Hope to see you on Christmas.

Sincerely,

Rev. Lionel 

But to do good and to communicate [Gk: fellowship] forget not:
for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. (Heb: 13:16)