smörgåsbord [SMOHR-guhs-bohrd] – Swedish for “bread and butter table”!!

The Lord has been overcoming our excuses for years now.  Starting with this bunch on the hillside.  They had needs, He had the answer.  Problem?  HE wanted somebody to get involved with Him to get it to the people…  What a ‘happy meal’ this was to that enormous crowd on the hillside. They couldn’t focus on their eternal needs until their temporal needs were met. Their bellies cried out so loudly that their spirits could not focus on their need. But Jesus met their physical need and included a prize inside far better. It was the bread of heaven, and a living water thru which they would never thirst again…and He supersized it for all who would accept it that day!

There are several types of hunger that we need to look at and they begin with the deepest and rise to the surface.  First of all they had an:

Emotional Hunger! –  They were hungry for acceptance, understanding, and unconditional love. They were looking for meaning in life and a purpose for their life.   We see the very same hunger in our everyday life today…  Self help books, reality TV shows, daily talkshows, motivational seminars and conferences are all best sellers by the thousands as people search for something real. They are ‘without’.  Someone,  (HELLO CHURCH! ANYBODY LISTENING?) HAS GOT to share the love of Jesus with them…He’s the one who can help them. An entire generation exists today who has not been truly loved.   Their are countless thousands and even millions of people who wouldn’t know unconditional love if it ran them over in the middle of the hallway in their own home.  They were raised in a home with something less than acceptance and unconditional love, and no wonder they don’t know how to love or be loved.  They’ve never seen it, heard it, experienced it, or for that matter really read about it.  Scripture is not understandable for the natural man.  Hello!  The foolishness of preaching is the way to win the lost.  Somebody hear me, WE HAVE TO PREACH THE WORD IN TRUTH AND LOVE.  No, not you pastor, evangelist, S.S. teacher, Deacon, no, YOU church.  YOU Christian.  YOU who have professed Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.  SPEAK UP.  NOW!  NOW is the time.  Can somebody get this?

The next kind of hunger they experienced is:

Spiritual Hunger! – Hey, can I get a witness here on at least one thing?  God is the only one who forgives.  Period.  There is no way other than calling on the Name of Jesus Christ whereby a person may be saved.  Forgiveness is the cry of every person with a hearbeat, they just don’t know it yet.  Exactly.  Every person ever created has the need for God’s forgivness.  Without it, they spend their whole lives in spiritual hunger.  Have you missed a meal lately?  Do you know what it feels like to go without food?  The problem in America today is that we have gotten so fat on food supplies and creature comforts that we’ve actually masked the need for God’s forgivness.  That DOES NOT MEAN IT WENT AWAY!  ‘Comfort’ is a deciever just like everything else that attempts to blind our sight from God Himself.  Church:  we need to pray.  That God will pull back the veil over the eyes of people and allow them to see the Son.  Then, we need to GO… into all of this world and point others to Christ.  In His presences is ‘fullness of joy’!  Did you hear that?  ‘fullness’ of joy.  I know you’ve been to the buffet line and gotten so full that you couldn’t do anything but lay down and take a nap.  Don’t deny it!  Peace comes when we recieve God’s forgiveness, we need to wake up and go tell.  I dare you to start today.

Well, enough about ‘them’ now what about ‘us’.  Speaking to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ let’s take a look at the:

Miraculous– Is’nt it amazing that even though Jesus was standing right there, He was the one that blessed the loaves and fish but it was the ‘disciples’ who did the distributing?  I mean come on, anybody can see that! LOL  God can do this Himself, but He chose to partner with little people like you and I to get the greatest job on the planet done… (v. 19-20)   He didn’t have to do that, but He chooses to use us. We don’t manufacture the bread, but we are called to be delivery drivers.  Be a bread man!  Start driving today!  In verse 16 we learn one key thing that should overcome every objection out there in the body of Christ today – we say and I hear everywhere I go that ‘it is impossible’, I can’t do this, I’m afraid I’ll say something wrong, etc. etc. etc.  NO, it is NOT impossible.  It is perfectly normal as a matter of fact for you and I to simply OBEY what we’ve been told to do.  Jesus told His disciples in this verse: “you feed them”.  Enough said.

So let me ask you today:  Are you going?  Are you telling?  Are you sharing your faith in Christ with others?  George Barna says that only 3 percent of professing Christians will share their faith over their lifetime!  Not much of an IMPACT is it?  3 percent?  So here’s my dare to you:

GET UP, GET OUT THERE, TALK TO SOMEBODY ABOUT THE ONE THAT EVERYBODY NEEDS TO HEAR ABOUT… JESUS.

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