PLANTING SEEDS TO MULTIPLY

JOHN  6:1-14 

Jesus feeding the five thousand men is another miracle He did to show us what he could do.

The multiplication of five loaves and two fish is an event to teach us to multiply the fruits of whatever we are planting.

To multiply, there should be a seed to be sown.

By learning the virtues of Jesus, we can multiply the result of our endeavor through the grace of God.

The Principle of Harvest

 Everything starts small.

A single grain can grow and can give you more than double in returns.

We plant the right seed and we harvest the best fruit.

A single grain can multiply but the question is what type of grain. The quality of the fruits we have depends on the quality of grains we have sown and the quality of care we gave while the plant is growing.

What we reap today is what we have planted years back.

What we are planting right now, is what we will harvest in the future.

Don’t expect to grow a mango by planting an avocado.

This is a universal law.

We plant today to harvest for tomorrow.

What we sow grows. What is alive, multiplies.

We plant a single seed today to let it multiply in the future.

Planting SEED OF COMPASSION

John 6:5 says, therefore lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him said to Phillip “Where are we to buy bread so that they may eat?”

Jesus was so compassionate that He felt the need of the people following Him.

His compassion prevails over his desires to take a rest for He knew that these people are hungry, sick, and in need. That is why in the book of Mark 6:34 when they land ashore, He saw the large crowd and he felt compassion for them for they are like sheep without a shepherd.

How do we see people when they come to us? Do we see them that they are in need or do we see them that they can give us what we need?

God is teaching us that for us to have that power to multiply if we will have the same seed of compassion in our hearts like Jesus.

Compassion is love in action. It is a seed that should grow in our hearts.

It should move us to help others because we feel their pain, we feel their suffering, we know their struggles and we know what they are been to.

We are ought to give what we received. We need to show our compassion same as what we received from God.

Extend your mercy towards others, so that there can be no one in need whom you meet without helping. For what hope is there for us if God should withdraw His Mercy from us? -Saint Vincent de Paul

The seed of compassion helps us to understand the needs of those people surrounding us. We become tolerant and we put our feet in the shoes of others.

It is easy to help and care for people who went through various storms in their life. It is easy to understand people who are in trouble because they lost their job, they are sick, and those who suffer because they lost their loved ones.

But compassion is seeing beyond what we can see from what other person is suffering. With that seed of compassion, we understand people who are beaten by a secret storm. You see them laughing, you see them dancing, you see them normal but deep within, they were suffering.

These are the people who have a good job, newly promoted but their responsibility is great that they have too much pressure at work. These are people serving in the church, in a ministry and you see them as normal, happy yet they secretly enduring their sickness.

Plant that seed of compassion and let it grow.

We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness of other people and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit of compassion that is truly the spirit of God. -Saint Vincent de Paul

Planting SEED OF FAITH

The size of our faith determines the size of blessings we will receive.

In verses 5-6 Jesus asked Phillip where they will buy bread so that the people may eat. This was to test him for He knew already what He intended to do.

God sometimes put us in a situation to test us where we have to use our faith.

It does not mean that when we are in a situation of trouble, suffering, in need, or in sickness, He is leaving us to settle it on our own.

He wants us to have a mind that sees increase rather than decrease. To see something even when we see nothing.

God is teaching us to see plenty amid scarcity. Faith can turn scarce into abundance. To have a vision of increase, magnify what is good.

That seed of faith planted in our hearts grows to help us to see the provisions rather than the dreadful situations.

The disciples see that even two hundred denarii are not enough to feed the five thousand people. With faith, we know that we have God who is more than enough.

We see the impossible rather than the visible.

Jacob was blessed by God for everything he does prosper. Laban flocks increase from little to multitude because of Jacob. But Laban witnessed how God blessed Jacob and he did treat Jacob deceitfully by not giving him his fair wages. Jacob asked Laban to depart from him and let him go to his country. They agreed that Jacob will continue to pasture his flocks but his wages shall be every spotted and speckled among the flocks shall belong to him.

Jacob’s faith took him to take fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rod. So the flocks mated by the rods and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. He separated the lambs and made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban, and he put his own herd apart and he did not put them in Laban’s flock.

The flocks became what they see. We achieve what we conceive in our thoughts.

Planting SEED OF GENEROSITY 

In verse 9, there was a lad who has five bread and two loaves.

The boy can just simply refuse to give what she had for this may just be enough for him. But he willingly gives it away and miracles happen.

Every seed of generosity will not turn into vain. What you have given to the needy is you’ve given to the Lord.

We may be thinking this is just enough for us and why to bother others, but giving is a key to receiving more abundant blessings.

What we give will return a hundred times. The five loaves of bread and two fish return baskets of leftover more than enough.

What you keep will only be yours but what you give will come back more than what you give. Because we cannot beat God in His generosity.

The widow in the times of Elijah can refuse the last ounce of oil and flour but their act of kindness turn out to be a miracle of overflowing, and oil flowing without ceasing more than enough for their needs.

Planting SEED OF GRATITUDE 

In verse 11, Jesus took the loaves, and having given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated.

Jesus did not consider the quantity of what they have but rather the quantity of what God can give by giving thanks to the ultimate source of all our needs.

Consider what you have as a blessing for out of what you have, God can turn it into your favor.

That remaining flour, remaining money on your savings if we acknowledge that God can multiply it to your contentment.

I remembered when I was in the province years back; the general source of water aside from a well was a manual water pump. But for the manual pump to work, a bucketful of water is set aside to pour into the pump.

We can use that water being set aside but what it gives us is just temporary when we pour it into the pump, what it can give is bounty.

We can keep what we have for ourselves but when we planted that generosity and learn to give it away, it bounces back to our plenty.

Jesus in His power can just click His fingers and “kaboom!” an instant buffet meal could be in front of them.

We can make a difference today 

But God allows us to be part of His miracles. Unknown to us, God uses us to be miracles for others.

Unknown to us, we become Jesus to somebody if we continue to nurture the seed of compassion, the seed of faith, generosity, and gratitude in our hearts.

We have the power to multiply as Jesus said, we can do things like what He did.

May your happiness multiply,

Mikesendon