Dear beloved,
Have you ever been fascinated by magicians when you were growing up? My dad used to be so into David Copperfield. His hobby was to figure out how he did the tricks or “illusions” as he called them. He does this by watching the same trick on TV over and over, rewinding, pausing and scrutinizing every frame hoping to see Mr.Copperfield accidentally slip up and reveal his secret.
But have you ever asked yourself, besides the obvious SHOCK/ENTERTAINMENT value of the trick, “What is the desired effect/meaning of showing you that trick?”. You might still say it’s merely for entertainment. But I disagree. It’s really to show you how COOL the magician really is.
You can almost see that smirk on his face as he finishes that trick. That moment between the wow/hush and the applause. The magician is trying to say, “I’m not an ordinary dude. I’m extraordinary.”. Sometimes, he may include a member of the audience and show them they are “extraordinary” too. “Here, all you have to do is CONCENTRATE and say the words, ‘IMAGENIUS’ and it would have vanished from this hand into your pocket”.
POINT #1 The Meaning behind the Miracle
Just as there is a meaning behind every magic trick, there is a MEANING behind every one of God’s miracles. He doesn’t just show you the miraculous just to WOW you or to entertain you.
If after reading how Jesus fed the 4,000 with 7 loaves of bread and some small fishes, all you could say is, “Wow, cool! Jesus is an extraordinary guy!”, then you have MISSED the meaning of the miracle. The disciples missed it and they didn’t just miss it once, but twice. Do you want to miss it too? I know I don’t. I hate the feeling of being “always the last one to know”. Plus, there is a definite DANGER to not understanding what you see.
Hosea 4:6 My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me. Since you priests refuse to know me, I refuse to recognize you as my priests. Since you have forgotten the laws of your God, I will forget to bless your children.
Those are pretty strong words that God spoke. But they are true nonetheless. Every miracle and everything that we hear and see is an opportunity for us to KNOW God and to believe in Him. That’s why Jesus is constantly asking people to seek for understanding when He says, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”. The only hardware you need to understand is a pair of ears (this does not exempt the deaf) and a humbled and fertile heart.
POINT #2 The Accountability of the Witness
There is a definite accountability attached to what you’ve been shown or what you’ve been privileged to see. Just as there was an accountability upon Adam and Eve when they heard the command from God not to eat from THAT one tree. Just as there was an accountability upon the children of Israel when they were given the 10 commandments. There was an accountability upon those who saw the Red Sea part, the cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, the manna, the quail, the rock pouring out water etc. The accountability is for us to BELIEVE and to UNDERSTAND.
Matthew 11:20-22
Then Jesus began to denounce the towns where he had done so many of his miracles, because they hadn’t repented of their sins and turned to God. “What sorrow awaits you, Korazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did in you had been done in wicked Tyre and Sidon, their people would have repented of their sins long ago, clothing themselves in burlap and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. I tell you, Tyre and Sidon will be better off on judgment day than you.
POINT #3 The Heart of the Hearer
I was getting out of the car yesterday during lunchtime when the Lord told me, “There’s a reason why you’ve never seen many miracles. You’re just not prepared. Because if you had seen and yet you disobey, the judgment upon you will be great.”. God withheld certain things from me also to protect me. There needs to be a certain maturity and humility in a person before they can behold a supernatural miracle. God showed Himself to Moses for this very reason. His heart was VERY VERY FERTILE and HUMBLE. Catch it down below:
Number 12:1-8
While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” But the Lord heard them. (Now Moses was very humble—more humble than any other person on earth.)
So immediately the Lord called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and said, “Go out to the Tabernacle, all three of you!” So the three of them went to the Tabernacle. Then the Lord descended in the pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle. “Aaron and Miriam!” he called, and they stepped forward. And the Lord said to them, “Now listen to what I say:
“If there were prophets among you,
I, the Lord, would reveal myself in visions.
I would speak to them in dreams.
But not with my servant Moses.
Of all my house, he is the one I trust.
I speak to him face to face,
clearly, and not in riddles!
He sees the Lord as he is.
So why were you not afraid
to criticize my servant Moses?”
Mind you, the Lord DOES NOT have favoritism because God is not a respecter of any human being. He did not trust Moses because He loved Moses more. But we will only be shown what we can handle lest we perish for a lack of understanding because of a HARDENED HEART. Remember, the heart can be hardened for any number of things: doubt, fear, familiarity, sin etc. That is why the condition of the SOIL of the heart is so so important.
I’m obviously speaking from Mark 8:1-21 about the feeding of the 4 thousand. If you have not read it, please do. Unlike the feeding of the 5 thousand, this time Jesus initiates it, whereas before, it was the disciples who somewhat “initiated” it when they asked Jesus to send them home because they were hungry. Catch it, they were saying this to a guy who went without food for 40 days then said that Man does not live on bread alone but on the Word of God. If anyone knew what hungry meant, Jesus knew, for He tested it’s “physical limits” and realized it’s “spiritual significance”. Ooooh, that’s deep! That’s a good one, Lord. Praise your Name!
POINT #4 The Heart of the Speaker
It is so important for us to see the significance of the initiation of this miracle. Jesus, even though He understood extreme hunger, was able to emphathize and sympathize with the people. Jesus didn’t just lead them out from and into a far off place not to think about their well being. This is how God is with us. He sympathizes and empathizes. Think about it! These people must have thought to themselves, “We’re 50 miles from home just to hear Jesus speak, what are we going eat when we make our journey back? It doesn’t matter, hearing Jesus is a once in a lifetime thing, let’s wing it!”.
People in full-time ministry should understand this more than anyone. He called them out of their steady secular jobs to work solely based off of people’s financial donations/support. What are they going to do when nobody supports them or they come up short for the monthly mortgage? Would Jesus lead you out into the wilderness to have you die there from hunger? Would God lead the children of Israel from Egypt into the desert to die of thirst and hunger? Did He not faithfully and lovingly provide for all their needs and put up with their complaints about this and that not tasting good? Even their shoes did not wear out???? My modern state of the art flip-flops wear out. Some of them, the soles are flapping out and it’s only been a year.
POINT #5 The Steward of the Talent
Just as the full-time minister is WOWed by the mysterious check that arrived in the mail, miraculously just in time, I might add; 4 thousand people were WOWed when they were fed with only 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish. It’s also significant to note why Jesus even needed those measly bread and fish to create A LOT of food from them. Why didn’t He just make bread rain down from the sky like it did for Moses and the children of Israel?
This I believe has to do again with the Parable of the Talents. It is the way God chooses to glorify Himself in His Kingdom. He entrusts His servants with a certain amount of talents and He EXPECTS them to USE IT, to MULTIPLY IT, to BEAR FRUIT! Those who are faithful with the FEW will also be faithful with the plenty, He says. And Jesus was being faithful with the few loaves of bread and the few small fishes. Faithfulness with what you’ve been given!
So, they all ate and were full. But they have 7 baskets of food leftover??? Just like the feeding of the 5 thousand, there were 12 baskets leftover??? What is the significance of this? If you want to know, you MUST ask and seek for understanding. Catch it, the disciples forgets to bring bread and couldn’t even understand what Jesus was saying about the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. Jesus was like moving on to the next lesson, but the students still didn’t understand the previous lesson?!!
Jesus, then, repeats the lesson by asking them the questions they should have been asking for themselves. But they couldn’t and they wouldn’t because their hearts were HARDENED AGAIN! God only knows why their hearts were hardened this time. I only can see that they were WOWed but they didn’t seek to know the MEANING of the miracle. Therefore, they didn’t UNDERSTAND, therefore, they didn’t BELIEVE.
If the miracle was about anything at all, it was about God’s faithfulness to us. God’s faithfulness to provide His sheep whom He is leading into pasture. He is the one who will lead us into the still waters and green pastures. He provides for EVERYTHING. Food, drink, shelter, peace, joy, love, purpose…everything. We have NO LACK because of Him. The leftover baskets of food is to show God “overdoing” it for us. He didn’t do JUST ENOUGH. He lavishly gives you more than you expect…more than you deserve. The issue is do we UNDERSTAND this about Him? More importantly, do we BELIEVE that about Him?
If He provided for us 10 times miraculously, but on the 11th time, we are still questioning His faithfulness, what else is there to be said? We baffle God by our lack of faith. It’s baffling to Him. It baffles Him just like it baffles us when we read about the children of Israel rebelling after seeing so many many many miracles!!! Is it not baffling??? I don’t even know any other word to use: bewildered, confounded, confused, at sea, mazed, mixed-up, befuddled, bemused, lost.
It’s like God WOWs us with His amazing miracles and we WOW Him back with our incredible lack of faith. That is not a good thing! Don’t baffle God with your lack of FAITH. It’s not funny to Him. It deeply saddens Him. If my son keeps saying I don’t love him even though I’ve done everything in my power to show him that I do, I would be confused, not to mention sad. Granted, I need to work on being a better father. 
POINT #6 Listening to Understand…Believing for TRUE Change
I’ll tell you the truth, the first time I read about Jesus’ response, I didn’t understand either. He ends with, “Don’t you understand yet?” and I’m like “??? Huh???”. Then, I started to ask Him. I started to humble myself and ask Him, “Lord, please forgive my ignorance and lack of faith, explain to me again, please?”. Then, He did. I started by humbling myself. I just put my head down and just said, “Lord…”.
The lesson is not whether God is faithful to you, it is “Do you BELIEVE He is faithful to you?”. Sometimes, you “see” people making the distinction between “listening” and “hearing”. They’ll say something like, “I know you hear but did you really listen?”. What they mean is “Do you understand what your heard?”. UNDERSTANDING is the same as BELIEVING. And understanding needs to manifest into ACTION.
If you have kids, you’ll know what I’m talking about. We tell our kids to do something and when they don’t, we say, “Why don’t you ever LISTEN to me?”. Now, do we actually mean they didn’t LISTEN to us or do we mean, “Why don’t you OBEY my commands?”? Understanding the TRUTH also means BELIEVING TRUTH. If you believe something to be TRUTH, it will permeate your being and define WHO YOU ARE! It will manifest itself into ACTION.
That is why Jesus said we shall know the TRUTH and the TRUTH shall set us free. It’s like you hearing a lesson from a teacher. Everything is just mumbo jumbo words UNTIL they start to fall into place and make sense. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle being put together to form a picture. That is when you finally understand. And your subsequent ACTIONS must prove that you truly understand.
If your actions contradict the “fact” that you believe, then you have believed something else more than you believed the TRUTH…which means you DO NOT REALLY believe the TRUTH nor understand it. Just like Eve. She was told the TRUTH by God that whoever eats from THAT tree will die and that He has lovingly provided all the other trees for food. But she believed the LIE of the devil more than the TRUTH of God. She believed it more when the devil told her she won’t die from eating that fruit and that God doesn’t really love her and that He’s selfish. That’s why her ACTIONS followed suit to what she REALLY BELIEVED.
POINT #7 To see or not to see clearly…that’s the question!
This is really a revelation to me: If you observe Jesus’ next miracle which is the healing of the blind man (verse 22-26). It was very very baffling for me to see Jesus “seemingly fail” to heal the man completely the first time. But like I said, there’s MEANING in everything. He spits on the man’s eyes and lays his hands on him and asks,
“Can you see anything now?”
Contrast that with Jesus asking the disciples, “Don’t you know or understand even yet?”. The blind man described that he saw trees walking around. He obviously was not born blind because he knew what trees looked like. But his vision was so messed up that the people looked like trees walking but he knows that is NOT THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. Then, his vision was fully restored the second time Jesus laid hands on him.
Is it enough to see trees walking around? Or do you want to see clearly? If you want to see clearly, you don’t rest until you do. There’s something God wants to show us each day and He wants us to ask Him for clarity. There is a lesson to be learnt about God by the circumstances in our lives just as much as there is a SPECIFIC MEANING/MESSAGE behind every miracle. You might be suffering and you’re wondering why? Even Paul understood the MEANING for His thorn in the flesh. Ask God for clarity of sight. Ask Him for understanding. Let him who have ears to hear, listen and understand.
His son,
Yatwei