Friday May 19th, 2023
« A generous person will be made rich, and whoever satisfies others will himself be satisfied. »
32 Now Jesus called His disciples to Himself and said,
“I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.
And I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.”
33 Then His disciples said to Him,
“Where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a great multitude?”
34 Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?”
And they said, “Seven, and a few little fish.”
35 So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.
36 And He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitude.
37 So they all ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets full of the fragments that were left.
38 Now those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children.
39 And He sent away the multitude, got into the boat, and came to the region of Magdala.
An African adage says, “Saying ‘this gift is too small to give’ makes one miserly.”
In the spirit of giving, I believe that a simple orange is enough to entertain four guests or even eight! It is just a matter of slicing it into four and slicing those four again to make eight pieces. Served on a clean plate along with a clean bowl of water and a neat hand towel in tow, you have done the needful if that is all you have.
Today’s Bible reading tells us the story of a young lad who did not see his lunch pack as being too small to give to the Master. He released it and it became a point of contact for divine multiplication.
One great lesson from this is that: anytime a small thing is released into divinely anointed hands, it multiplies.
Any business that has God as its CEO will always prosper, irrespective of its size.
We see an example of this in the story of a man who started a business with five hundred dollars and a vow that 90% of the business would be God’s, while just 10% would be his. In a few years, he became a multimillionaire!
The lad who offered his meal to Jesus can be regarded as a true son of Abraham in that he was given to hospitality just as Abraham was.
Abraham was so hospitable that he unknowingly entertained angels (Hebrews 13:2) .
You don’t necessarily need to be a multimillionaire before you can become a giver.
Indeed, having the whole world at your disposal does not make you a giver!
The widow of Zarephat gave her last meal to the man of God. This meal was so small that it took only two sticks of firewood to prepare it (1 Kings 17:12)!
Beloved, for you to move from your present level of blessing to a higher level, you need to learn how to give.
Through the principle of giving, some heroes of faith in the days of old use what they had to obtain a good heritage for themselves.
This principle has not changed today.
There is this story of one of my sons in the Lord, who was in his house one evening when a young man came in to beg him for some money to buy food for his young baby. This son of mine said he had only ten naira (Nigerian currency) on him at that point. The value of the naira back then was very strong, so strong that five naira was enough to take him to work and back. So, he gave the man five out if the ten naira with him, and he forgot about the incident.
Months later, this young man came back again, this time asking my son if he was interested in owning some landed property. My son answered yes, even though he had no money for such a project at that time. To his surprise, the young man offered him a plot of land from the portion allocated to him and his siblings, with the option of paying later.
When my son insisted that he was not going to take the land, the young man reminded him of the five naira he gave him many months ago that saved his child from starving to death. It was then my son remembered what had happened, and he consented to the land offer. That land was the beginning of some other properties God blessed him with.
Beloved, nothing is too small to give.
Learn to give from today, because you do not know what doors it will open for you.
Application: Some doors can only be unlocked through giving
Author: Bishop Enoch. A. Adeboye.
Edited by Naomie
Freely you received, freely you must give (Math 10:8) , kindly share this devotion, and the Lord will bless you for it .
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