28th November 2025

You may have read the Gospel accounts which, for example, the NIV heads: ‘Jesus feeds the five thousand’ and ‘Jesus feeds the four thousand’, but reading the passages carefully reveals that Jesus didn’t feed the crowd, the disciples did. There is an amazing lesson here, and a wonderful insight into how God works through human agents. The disciples saw the need, but their mindset was negative: they had a few loaves and fishes but their minds were focused on what they didn’t have, not on what they did have.

Jesus could have turned stones into bread, but he didn’t. He blessed what they had and told the disciples to give it to the multitude. Then, as they served the people, the inadequate became more than adequate through Jesus’s miracle. Later on Jesus commissioned those disciples, and by extension us, to share precious spiritual food: the gospel message of God’s forgiveness and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. A negative mindset can grip even whole denominations and congregations, wasting opportunities and paralysing effectiveness. Too often we Christians feel constrained to inaction by obsessing about what we don’t have rather than what we do have, what we can’t do rather than what we can do. 

Instead we should thank God and ask him, in faith, to bless what we do have, and can do, then mobilise it in his service. We are just human, so of course we are inadequate – but God is not: ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God…’ (2 Corinthians 3:5 NKJV).

The poor widow only had two mites but Jesus rated her contribution above that of the rich and powerful. Anna, an elderly widow, could do nothing but fast and pray, so that’s what she did. Jesus expects us to use what we have, and he will bless it.

Consider the dynamic apostle Paul, founder of churches and powerful preacher to the Gentiles. Imprisonment clipped his wings, severely inhibiting what he could do. But if Paul’s ministry had been entirely oral we would not have today the vital parts of the New Testament which he wrote while in prison. God knew that the spoken word was transient in both time and space, but the written word is enduring. It was vital to God’s work that Paul was forced to communicate in writing. With deteriorating eyesight, Paul even had to dictate many of his letters, but Paul remained positive: ‘And He [Jesus] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” ’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

We all have different gifts, abilities and opportunities, and we all also have limitations and constraints on what we can do, whether circumstantial, financial, age, or health related. What matters is that we focus on what we do have, what we can do, and ask for God’s blessing as we engage in his work in whatever way we can.

Local congregation:
Grace Communion International Central Glasgow 
Garnethill Room
Conference Suite
St Andrews West
260 Bath Street
Glasgow
G2 4JP

Meeting time:
Sunday 11:15 am

Local congregational contact:   
GCI, Glasgow. glasgow@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church