Post by Les on Jun 24, 2023 12:08:57 GMT -5
He Makes Us New By: Patricia Raybon
Click here for the Audio Message
Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.
John 6:12
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 6:5–13
As a travelling executive, Shawn Seipler wrestled with an odd question. What happens to leftover soap in hotel rooms? Thrown out as rubbish for landfills, millions of soap bars could instead find new life, Seipler believed. So he launched Clean the World, a recycling venture that has helped more than eight thousand hotels, cruise lines and resorts turn millions of pounds of discarded soap into sterilised, newly moulded soap bars. Sent to people in need in more than one hundred countries, the recycled soap helps prevent countless hygiene-related illnesses and deaths.
As Seipler said, “I know it sounds funny, but that little bar of soap on the counter in your hotel room can literally save a life.”
The gathering up of something used or dirty to give it new life is also one of the most loving traits of our Saviour, Jesus. In that manner, after He fed a crowd of five thousand with five small barley loaves and two small fish, He still said to His disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted” (John 6:12).
In our lives, when we feel washed out, God sees us not as wasted lives but as His miracles. Never throwaways in His sight, we have divine potential for new kingdom work. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). What makes us new? Christ within us.
Reflect & Pray
When have you felt like you possessed little value? How has Jesus given you new life?
When I feel worthless, dear Father, help me see my new life in You.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Stating there were twelve baskets of leftovers (John 6:13) is a remarkable detail in an account that begins with the seeming impossibility of feeding the crowd. The disciple Philip notes that it would take “more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” (v. 7). Even if they had the means to buy that much bread, it would likely have been impossible to find that much available from local villages and towns, which wouldn’t have been expecting so many buyers.
The miracle has some parallels to the account in 2 Kings 4:42–44. There, during a time of famine (v. 38), God multiplied twenty loaves of barley bread. Like the disciple Andrew (John 6:9), Elisha’s servant questioned putting a small amount of food before so many. But in both miracles, there was enough for all—with leftovers (2 Kings 4:44; John 6:12–13)!
Monica La Rose
John 6:5-13
King James Version
5 When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?
6 And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.
7 Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him,
9 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?
10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.
12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.
Click here for the Audio Message
Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.
John 6:12
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 6:5–13
As a travelling executive, Shawn Seipler wrestled with an odd question. What happens to leftover soap in hotel rooms? Thrown out as rubbish for landfills, millions of soap bars could instead find new life, Seipler believed. So he launched Clean the World, a recycling venture that has helped more than eight thousand hotels, cruise lines and resorts turn millions of pounds of discarded soap into sterilised, newly moulded soap bars. Sent to people in need in more than one hundred countries, the recycled soap helps prevent countless hygiene-related illnesses and deaths.
As Seipler said, “I know it sounds funny, but that little bar of soap on the counter in your hotel room can literally save a life.”
The gathering up of something used or dirty to give it new life is also one of the most loving traits of our Saviour, Jesus. In that manner, after He fed a crowd of five thousand with five small barley loaves and two small fish, He still said to His disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted” (John 6:12).
In our lives, when we feel washed out, God sees us not as wasted lives but as His miracles. Never throwaways in His sight, we have divine potential for new kingdom work. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). What makes us new? Christ within us.
Reflect & Pray
When have you felt like you possessed little value? How has Jesus given you new life?
When I feel worthless, dear Father, help me see my new life in You.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Stating there were twelve baskets of leftovers (John 6:13) is a remarkable detail in an account that begins with the seeming impossibility of feeding the crowd. The disciple Philip notes that it would take “more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” (v. 7). Even if they had the means to buy that much bread, it would likely have been impossible to find that much available from local villages and towns, which wouldn’t have been expecting so many buyers.
The miracle has some parallels to the account in 2 Kings 4:42–44. There, during a time of famine (v. 38), God multiplied twenty loaves of barley bread. Like the disciple Andrew (John 6:9), Elisha’s servant questioned putting a small amount of food before so many. But in both miracles, there was enough for all—with leftovers (2 Kings 4:44; John 6:12–13)!
Monica La Rose
John 6:5-13
King James Version
5 When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?
6 And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.
7 Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him,
9 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?
10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.
12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.