Monday August 05th, 2024
Meditate on Mark 1:11-12
« Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness »
5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?”
6 He was testing Philip, for He already knew what He was going to do.
7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!”
8 Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up.
9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”
10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.)
11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward He did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted.
12 After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.”
13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.
The boy in the Bible reading who gave his lunch to Jesus Christ was not named.
One would expect that a boy like that who was selfless enough to share his lunch, through which over 5,000 people were miraculously fed, would have been named in the Bible, but the Scriptures are silent about his name.
Not only he; many of the vessels of honor in the Bible were not named.
For example, the slave girl in (2 Kings 5:1-3) who brought salvation to Syria was not named, the fellow who the disciples saw casting out demons in Jesus’ name in Luke 9:49 was also not named.
This tells us that the work of God is not a popularity contest.
You don’t have to be popular to be relevant and of great use to the Kingdom of God.
When I see people struggling to be seen and recognized publicly while doing the work of God, I wonder if they understand the nature of the assignment they are called to.
That’s why in Mark 1:45, when the leper who Jesus healed went around telling everyone about his healing, Jesus could not enter the city openly again.
Jesus knew that the spotlight was going to distract Him from the real work which He was to do, so He stayed in the desert to carry out His assignment.
When you read Mark 1:10-13, you will see one of the dangers of being publicly recognized.
The moment God bragged about Jesus Christ to the hearing of the public, Satan heard and a season of trials and temptations began for Jesus immediately.
In 1 Samuel 13:14, Samuel announced that God had found a man after His heart to replace Saul.
Immediately Satan heard that, he began to look out for who that man was.
In 1 Samuel 16:11, when Samuel said nobody would sit until David arrived to be anointed, Satan knew it was David, so he raised Goliath against Israel so that David would not fulfil his God-given destiny.
David killed Goliath and it became abundantly clear that David was loved and chosen by God, so the devil raised Saul against him and a season of trials began for David during which he resorted to hiding in caves.
The moment you are hailed in public, the devil marks you for trial.
Be wise; one of the prayer points in the Lord’s prayer is, “Lead us not into temptation”.
Don’t bother about public recognition.
Just face the work that God wants you to do, not the spotlight.
Application – The spotlight attracts the attention of the devil; stay away from it as much as you can.
Author – Bishop Enoch Adejare Adeboye; General Overseer of the RCCG
Edited by Naomie Joseph
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