When new babies are born, people always make a fuss over them. If you’ve ever had a baby brother or sister born into your family, you may have felt like your mom and dad forgot about you for a little while. However, the fuss that was made over your baby brother or sister was nothing compared to the one that was made over John the Baptist when he was born. Everybody was talking about it for miles around—a baby had been born to an old woman! Plus, an angel had appeared to the baby’s father, who had been unable to speak for nine months! Everyone who heard about it knew that Zechariah and Elizabeth had a special son for whom God had a special plan.

The people of Israel had been given many laws by God, one of which concerned baby boys. All of them were supposed to be circumcised on the eighth day of their lives. To be circumcised means to have a little piece of skin removed from a boy’s private parts. It hurts for a little while, but quickly heals like any other cut. All the Israelite boys were supposed to be circumcised in order to mark them as being God’s people. It showed that they belonged to God.

Like all other baby boys in Israel, John the Baptist was circumcised on the eighth day of his life, and that is when he was given the name John according to the instructions of the angel who appeared to his father. John means “God is very kind.”

On the day of John’s circumcision, his father was suddenly able to speak once again, and the first thing he spoke was praise to God. Soon after, the Holy Spirit spoke through him in a beautiful prophecy. If you listened to it closely, you probably noticed that the prophecy was more about Jesus than John. That’s because Jesus was a million times more important than John. John was only a man made great by God. Jesus was God. Zechariah’s prophecy revealed that it was God’s plan for John to prepare the way for Jesus to begin His ministry.

What did Zechariah’s prophecy say regarding Jesus? It revealed that Jesus was God. It said that God would visit His people (see Luke 1:68).

When He visited, God would redeem His people (see Luke 1:68). In the New Testament, the word redeem means to purchase someone’s freedom from being a slave. Before we were born again, we were slaves to selfishness, sin and Satan.

Zechariah’s prophecy also revealed that Jesus would be a mighty Savior (see Luke 1:69). We needed someone to save us from the penalty for our sins: eternal separation from God in hell. Through our Savior, our sins have been forgiven because of God’s wonderful mercy (see Luke 1:77-78).

That Savior would be a descendant of King David, just as God had promised David a thousand years before (see Luke 1:69b-70).

Jesus would also save God’s people from their enemies. Through Jesus, we’ve already been saved from our spiritual enemies: Satan and his evil spirits. They can’t control us as they used to. Now, as Zechariah said, we can serve God without fear of them (see Luke 1:74). And one day, all of God’s people will be saved from their physical enemies, when we live in God’s eternal kingdom. There won’t be anyone there who hates us.

The truth that Jesus would bring to the people of the earth would be like light coming down from heaven. No longer would we have to stumble around in darkness, not knowing where we are going. His truth would guide us into peace (see Luke 1:79). Aren’t you glad that Jesus came?

Q. Is there any evidence in today’s reading that Zechariah was not only temporarily mute, but also temporarily deaf?

A. Yes. Read Luke 1:62 closely. If Zechariah had been able to hear, his friends and relatives wouldn’t have needed to communicate to him “by making gestures.”

Q. If you were unable to speak for nine months, what would be the first words out of your mouth when your speech was restored? Why?

Application: Isn’t it amazing that God had a plan for John’s life even before he was born? Did you know that, according to Ephesians 2:10, God also had a plan for our lives even before we were born? All of God’s children are somewhat like John the Baptist. Like John, our main job is to get people ready to meet the Lord.

When someone is deaf, he normally will have difficulty speaking clearly and in an understandable way, even if there’s nothing wrong with his mouth or vocal cords. The reason is because we learn to talk by comparing what we hear ourselves say with what others say. If we can’t hear, we can’t learn to talk. And if a hearing person becomes deaf, his speech will gradually become more difficult for others to understand, since he can no longer hear himself speak and thus judge how clearly he is speaking. This was perhaps the case of the deaf man with a speech impediment about whom we read.

We don’t know why Jesus put His fingers in the man’s ears or why He spit on His own fingers and then touched the deaf man’s tongue, but we assume He was being led by the Holy Spirit. The wonderful thing is that the man was instantly healed. Can you imagine his joy? Think of how blessed you are if your hearing is good.

This man was only one of the many Jesus healed when He returned from the region of Tyre. As we read yesterday, He healed many who were blind, deaf, mute and lame. From today’s reading, we can conclude that Jesus didn’t heal them just to prove He was the Son of God. He told the crowd not to tell anyone about His miracles, indicating that He healed because He loved people, not because He was trying to prove His deity or advertise Himself. This should encourage those of us who need healing today, because Jesus is just as merciful now as He was when He walked on the earth. Too many people think that Jesus healed only during His earthly ministry to prove He was God in the form of a human being, and then conclude that He won’t heal them since His deity was well-established two thousand years ago.

Today we also read how Jesus once again multiplied loaves of bread and fish. This time there were seven large baskets of food left over, showing how gracious God is—Jesus provided more than they even needed. We should expect that God will do the same for us. Let us not forget, however, that the people who were miraculously blessed with food were not those who were sitting at home, but those who had sought to be with Jesus. God has promised to supply all our needs if we will live for Him and make His kingdom our primary concern (see Matthew 6:33).

Q. How many people did Jesus feed in today’s story?

A. This is somewhat of a trick question! Mark’s Gospel says that Jesus fed four thousand people (see Mark 8:9). So you may have answered four thousand. However, the same story is found in Matthew’s Gospel, and Matthew specifies that Jesus fed four thousand men, “in addition to all the women and children” (Matthew 15:38). If every man was married and had four children, Jesus fed twenty-four thousand people that day!

Application: We should look to Jesus not only as our Savior, but as the one who supplies all our needs. God is the one who created us with a need to eat, drink, sleep and be clothed, and so we should expect that He will take care of all those things for us.

As we continue reading the life story of Jesus, we’ll learn that He faced a growing opposition from the Pharisees and other religious leaders. Those men who were supposed to be servants of God hated God’s Son with a passion, and wanted to ruin Him. Ultimately they succeeded in killing Him, but that only lasted for three days!

Today we read about the Pharisees and Sadducees asking Jesus for a miraculous sign in order to prove His claims. This was at least the second time they’d made such a request (see Matthew 12:38). They had no doubt heard the reports of the many people who were healed; in fact, some of them actually had been present to see Jesus heal (see Luke 5:17-25). So they were probably asking for something really spectacular, like fire falling from heaven.

Their request revealed how evil they were, and Jesus responded by saying so. The Pharisees and Sadducees could read the weather signs in the sky, but they couldn’t read the obvious signs that proved Jesus was their promised Messiah. He had already provided more than sufficient proof that He was God in the form of a human being. Their request of a sign was an indication of the hardness of their hearts, and Jesus promised them only one sign on the magnitude of what they were seeking, calling it “the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Of course, Jonah’s expulsion from the fish’s stomach after three days foreshadowed Jesus’ own resurrection.

Obviously, anyone who followed the teaching of the Pharisees or Sadducees was doomed, as Jesus later warned His disciples as they once again crossed the Sea of Galilee. Unfortunately, they completely misunderstood what He meant when He said, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). They thought He said that because they had forgotten to bring any bread with them in their boat, since yeast is a primary ingredient in bread. Knowing their thoughts, Jesus rebuked them. Why would they have ever thought that He, having recently multiplied bread twice, would be the least bit concerned about having no bread in the boat? Their thoughts revealed their lack of faith in Him, and He told them so.

However, in the final part of today’s reading, we learn that Jesus’ disciples weren’t entirely lacking in faith. Peter, likely speaking as a representative for most of the twelve, confessed that he believed Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. Thus in one section of Scripture we have examples of the faith and doubts of the same followers of Christ. This clearly shows us that we may well believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but doubt that He will provide for our other needs, as is the case with too many of us. Sometimes we need to be reminded, like the disciples, of what God has done in the past to provide for our needs.

Like the disciples, all of us have faltered in our faith and failed. That, however, is not a reason to be discouraged, give up, or feel condemned. Jesus kept on working with His disciples, and He will keep on working with us!

Q. Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” (Matthew 16:18). What is the rock Jesus mentioned?

A. Peter had just declared his faith that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God. The foundation upon which the church is built is the belief that Jesus is God’s Son, and the church grows as more people believe it. The rock Jesus referred to was the fact of Him being God’s Son and people’s faith in that fact.

Q. What did Jesus mean when He promised Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven?

A. Keys represent the means of opening something that is locked. In this case, Jesus promised to give Peter the means to unlock heaven while he was still on the earth. Heaven, in a sense, is locked to all sinners. But it can be opened to sinners if they are made righteous. The key that opens it to them is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus was promising Peter that He would entrust him with the gospel, so that he could open the entrance to heaven for people. Likewise, Peter could boldly declare that heaven was shut to anyone who refused to believe the gospel.

Application: Like Peter, we’re blessed to know and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, because so many people don’t know or believe it. We’re now part of a worldwide church that, as Jesus said, the powers of hell will not conquer. We’re on a winning team!

This first story has always been a difficult one to fully understand, because Jesus doesn’t act like we’d expect Him to act. We view Him as always kind, compassionate and impartial, but He seems to be uncaring and prejudiced as He relates to this Gentile woman. So how are we to interpret this story?

Some believe that Jesus, in order to teach His disciples a lesson, was at first pretending to act like the average prejudiced Jew. That may well be the correct interpretation, because Jesus did ultimately grant the woman her request, revealing His true compassion for her and her daughter.

Others have suggested that Jesus was simply testing her faith, again by acting as if He didn’t want to heal her daughter. Would she persist in believing or would she give up? Was her faith genuine?

And others think that Jesus was being honest in everything He said to her. That is, He was truly sent by His Father to help only the lost people of Israel, and not Gentiles.

This third interpretation is difficult for me to accept for several reasons. First, because if Jesus was sent by His Father to help only the lost people of Israel and not the Gentiles, why then did He apparently disobey His Father by ultimately healing the woman’s daughter? Second, why did He help other Gentiles, such as the Roman centurion? Third, why did He die for the sins of every Gentile in the entire world?

Beyond that, Jesus apparently referred to the woman as a dog, a common, derogatory term that prideful Jews used to describe Gentiles. It’s difficult for me to believe that Jesus really felt this woman was worthy of such a demeaning title and more undeserving than Jews of receiving God’s help. I can’t believe that Jesus didn’t feel as much compassion for her plight as He did for anyone else’s plight, just because she was a Gentile. Chances are that practically every family reading this devotional is a Gentile family. Is this how Jesus feels about us?

For these reasons, I prefer a combination of the first two possible interpretations. Jesus’ own disciples expressed no concern for this poor woman, and requested that Jesus send her away, complaining that her begging was bothering them. This could hardly be considered a commendable action on their part. Christian virtue requires a higher standard than that. So perhaps Jesus wanted to teach them a lesson about God’s love of non-Jewish people. I wonder if Jesus was looking right at them when He pronounced the woman’s daughter healed. I wonder what they were thinking when He did!

Also, we note that Jesus commended the Gentile woman for her great faith, proven by her persistence, and then immediately announced that her daughter was healed. No one can rightfully say that her faith wasn’t severely tested, as it seems that even Jesus tried to discourage her. But her persistent faith paid off.

Finally, perhaps there was more to this story than what we realize. Possibly Jesus knew something about this Gentile woman’s private life that truly disqualified her from having any right to approach Him. She may have been a devoted idol-worshipper. Perhaps it was some very perverted and sinful thing she did that provided an avenue for her daughter to become demon-possessed. By ignoring her, Jesus may have been initially sending her a message of her need of repentance.

Regardless of what we don’t understand about this incident, the ending makes perfect sense. Jesus, the compassionate Son of God, healed the woman’s daughter instantly! God’s love is so great!

Q. What do you think would have happened if the Gentile woman had not persisted in faith?

A. Her daughter would not have been healed, even though her healing was obviously God’s will. As I’ve said previously, proud people don’t like to hear such things, because they don’t want to take responsibility for their unbelief and would rather blame God for their prayers that have gone unanswered. Most of us, like Jesus’ twelve disciples, have doubted and failed in our faith. Let’s be humble enough to accept responsibility, and wise enough to continue building our faith by feeding it with God’s Word and exercising it. Our faith can grow! And praise God that, although He may be disappointed in our lack of faith, He never condemns us for it.

Q. When Jesus returned to Galilee, “a vast crowd brought him the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others with physical difficulties, and they laid them before Jesus” (Matthew 15:30). Matthew wrote that Jesus “healed them all” (Matthew 15:30). What does this teach us about God’s will for healing?

A. It teaches us that God loves every sick person and it is His will to heal them all. If you had been lame, blind, crippled or mute and had been brought to Jesus that day, you would have been healed. Jesus didn’t say to anyone, “I’m sorry, but it is not God’s will for everyone to be healed, so I have to turn you away.” No, everyone who came requesting healing was healed. Thus, it is certainly safe to assume that seriously ill people who didn’t come that day could have been healed if they would have come. But because they didn’t believe, they didn’t come, and they weren’t healed, even though it was God’s will for them to be healed.

Application: There is no doubt that our faith is sometimes tested. What we are believing for often doesn’t seem as if it’s going to come to pass. But we should be encouraged by the Gentile woman we read about today. Her persistence paid off, and so will ours.

Has your mother taught you to wash your hands before you eat? Now you can tell her that Jesus is against her rule, right? Wrong! The Pharisees washed their hands before eating, but not to cleanse themselves of germs, because they didn’t know about germs two thousand years ago. They washed their hands to obey their tradition, believing that if they ate with unwashed hands, they would become defiled and unacceptable to God. That small error in their thinking wouldn’t have been so bad, except that their misconception about what made them acceptable or unacceptable to God extended much farther. Some of the traditions they kept actually violated God’s Word. Thus, as Jesus said, they rejected God’s specific laws and substituted their own traditions. Obeying man-made rules, they disobeyed God’s rules.

One example of this was their breaking of the fifth commandment: “Honor your father and mother.” The Pharisees taught that a person didn’t have to help his needy parents if he vowed to give his money to God. Because they were lovers of money (see Luke 16:14), this tradition was probably designed to increase their own personal wealth. The Pharisees wouldn’t have to spend their money supporting their elderly parents, plus, other people vowed to give their money to the Pharisees to support “God’s work” rather than help their parents. This was just one of many examples of how the Pharisees broke God’s law in order to protect their own traditions.

Many churches today are guilty of this same sin—exalting their own traditions above God’s laws. As a result, people who keep the traditions think they’re acceptable to God, even though they break many of His commandments. They attend church every week, say the right things at the right times during the service, receive communion, and think that makes them acceptable to God. But the rest of the week, they lie, steal and take God’s name in vain. They’re full of lust, hatred and pride. And just like the Pharisees, they’ll spend eternity in hell unless they come to their senses, truly repent and begin to follow Jesus. When they do, their lives will change dramatically.

Jesus went on to explain that what a person eats is not what makes him acceptable or unacceptable to God. It is what a person does and says. Unfortunately, even some Christians have fallen into deception in this regard, over-emphasizing the importance of what we eat, and sometimes even claiming that we must follow the dietary laws of the Old Testament. Thinking they are more pleasing to God, they look down on other Christians who don’t also restrict their diets. But today we read that Jesus declared that every kind of food is acceptable to eat (see Mark 7:19). Let’s be careful that we don’t become sidetracked by minor things. God wants His people to live according to His, not our, standards of holiness.

Q. Because Jesus declared all foods are acceptable for us to eat, does that mean it would be OK for us to subsist on a diet of candy bars and Cokes?

A. When Jesus lived on the earth, there were no such things as candy bars and Cokes. In fact, there were not any foods that were processed like the many foods available to us today. In their natural state as God created them, all foods are acceptable for us to eat and contribute to our physical well-being. But foods that have been altered and stripped of their nutritional value are in a different category. There are many nutrients that are essential for our bodies to remain healthy, and a wise Christian will see that his diet contains all the nutrients he needs.

Q. Have you ever met someone who thinks they’re holier than you because they keep certain rules that can’t be found anywhere in the Bible? What do you think Jesus would say to them?

Application: Like the people in yesterday’s reading, the Pharisees of today’s reading were more concerned with physical rather than spiritual things, and concentrated more on external rather than internal things. Without neglecting the physical and external, God wants us to be more concerned about the spiritual and internal.

After Jesus had miraculously fed five thousand people, He sent the multitudes back to their homes in the evening. That night was when He walked on water and rescued His disciples as they all journeyed to the other side of the lake. The next morning, the same crowds Jesus had fed searched for and found Him. Unfortunately, they were not motivated by their hunger for spiritual truth; rather, they were hoping for some more free food.

This greatly disappointed Jesus, so He exhorted them to seek not for what temporarily sustains physical life, but for what was vastly more important, the eternal life that only He could give them. One reason Jesus had supernaturally provided physical food was because He was hoping the people would see Him as their source for true spiritual food.

Jesus then explained that God’s spiritual food is far superior to any physical food. All that physical food can do is keep a person’s body alive, and it can only do it for a limited amount of time because everyone eventually dies. The spiritual food that God is offering, however, gives life to our spirits, the part of us that the Bible calls the “inward person.” That inward person will live forever, but unless he eats some of God’s spiritual food, he will be forever sinful and destined to spend eternity in hell. But if he eats God’s spiritual food, he will be reborn and spend eternity in heaven.

Not only that, but God’s spiritual food will one day affect his physical body as well. On the last day, God will resurrect everyone’s body who has believed in Jesus, making them into “glorified bodies” that will never become sick, grow old or die! What physical food can’t keep alive for more than a few decades, God’s spiritual food will resurrect and keep alive forever! That’s why Jesus said that when we eat God’s spiritual food, we will never hunger or thirst again. He meant that His gift of eternal life, once received, was sufficient for all eternity. It’s not something that needs constant replenishing. One meal is good forever!

God wants everyone to eat His spiritual food, and Jesus told the people that they could eat by simply believing in Him. They, however, were still much more interested in physical food, and, hoped that He would again provide free bread. They requested a sign that would convince them to believe in Him. Because it was food they were after, they mentioned how Moses had miraculously provided bread for the people of Israel, the manna they gathered each morning from the ground.

Jesus explained that it wasn’t Moses who provided the bread, it was God. Now the same God was offering everyone “true bread,” the spiritual food that could give them eternal life. Jesus then stated that He was God’s true bread sent from heaven, indicating that what people really needed was for Him to come inside their spirits.

But His audience began to murmur over what He said. They knew He had been born like any other person, so how could He claim to have come from heaven? They didn’t know, of course, that Joseph wasn’t actually Jesus’ father, and that Jesus had come from heaven via Mary’s womb.

Finally, continuing to expand on His comparison of Himself to food, Jesus revealed what would uniquely qualify Him to offer eternal life to the world, and what people must believe in order to receive the eternal life He offered: He would die, offering Himself as a sacrifice so others could have eternal life. Jesus said, “This bread is my flesh, offered so the world may live….I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them at the last day. For my flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink” (John 6:51, 53-55).

Of course, no one can, and neither does Jesus want anyone to actually eat His flesh and drink His blood. But Jesus wants us to receive Him into our spirits, just as we receive physical food into our bodies. And He wants us to believe that He died for us, pouring out His blood and giving His body so we can have eternal life. In Jesus’ comparison, eating represents receiving and believing. Eating Jesus, God’s true bread, means believing in Him. It means becoming one with Him, just as Jesus said, “All who eat my flesh and drink my blood remain in me, and I in them” (John 6:56).

Many people who were listening that day didn’t like what they heard. They took what Jesus said literally, not figuratively as He intended, and just as any sincere person would have taken Him. They really didn’t want to understand because they didn’t want to believe what He was saying about Himself. So they left Him. But Peter, a sincere believer, confessed that he believed Jesus alone had the words of eternal life and that He was “the Holy One of God” (John 6:69), the Messiah. Even if he didn’t fully understand all Jesus said, he and the rest would be staying with Jesus, as all true believers would.

Q. Jesus said that people can’t come to Him unless they are drawn by the Father. Does this mean that God is only drawing certain people to Jesus?

A. No. Jesus said that if He was lifted up on the cross, that He would draw everyone to Himself (see John 12:32). So Jesus is drawing everyone , but unless He and His Father drew people, none would come to Him, because all are so blinded by sin and hard-hearted.

Q. Did you see any correlation with what we read today and the church’s practice of taking communion?

A. When we eat the bread and drink the grape juice, it represents eating Jesus’ body and drinking His blood. That sounds like Christians are cannibals! However, we’re not! I hope you realize now that partaking of the communion elements represents our becoming one with Jesus and reminds us of His substitutionary death for us. Just as the bread and grape juice go into our stomachs and then nourish every cell in our bodies, so Jesus, by His Holy Spirit, has come into our spirits and given us eternal life. Just as we become “one” with the bread and grape juice, so we’ve become one with Jesus. He’s in us and we’re in Him. That’s why it’s called communion, because what we do symbolizes our communion with Jesus (and each other). Also, communion reminds us that our oneness with Jesus was made possible by His sacrificial death, when His body was broken (like the bread is broken) and His blood was shed, represented by the grape juice.

Application: Some of what we read today was difficult to understand, just as Jesus’ disciples expressed to Him. However, we have a good idea of what Jesus meant in general. And, like Peter, even if we don’t fully understand everything Jesus said, we know He’s the only One who has the words of eternal life. So we’ll keep right on following Him! Someday we will understand what we don’t understand now.

Can God use kids? According to John’s record of this same story, the five small barley loaves and two small fish that Jesus multiplied belonged to a young boy (see John 6:9). Perhaps it was his lunch. Regardless, I’m sure that boy never forgot the day when his few loaves and fish fed five thousand men.

This story shows us that God can take what little we have to give and make it into something that can bless a lot of people. We may think, like that little boy, that we don’t have very much to offer. But God can multiply what we have. In so doing, it is He, not us, who is rightfully made to look better in other people’s eyes.

I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to see this miracle. Specifically, I’ve wondered when the food actually multiplied. Did it multiply only in Jesus’ hands, or did it also multiply in His disciples’ hands? It seems reasonable to conclude that it was both, due to the fact that so many thousands of people were fed. Remember that there must have been many women and children besides just the five thousand men who were fed.

I think it is also very likely that the bread and fish continued to multiply in the hands of the people sitting in the groups. If so, that could be how they all knew that a great miracle had just taken place (see John 6:14). Wouldn’t that be something to see—food multiplying in your own hands? Regardless, this story is one more proof that Jesus was God. At least five thousand people witnessed what happened, and there is no record in history that anyone at that time even attempted to claim that it didn’t happen.

This story also shows us how much God loves people. Jesus and His disciples were trying to get away from the crowds just to rest for a while and eat a meal without interruption. So they journeyed by boat across the Sea of Galilee to a desolate spot. But when they arrived at their destination, a vast crowd was waiting for them. Amazingly, Jesus displayed no aggravation, but rather, He felt compassion for them and ministered to them by teaching and healing (see Luke 9:11). Then, late in the afternoon, He was concerned that the people needed food to eat, so He provided a meal for them. Our God cares about us. He wants to supply our needs. We shouldn’t ever feel that we’re bothering Him. He loves us dearly!

Q. Once, a modern Pharisee who didn’t believe in the miracles of the Bible, attempted to disprove Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. He claimed that back in Jesus’ time, the loaves of bread were very large. How do we know that wasn’t true?

A. Because the loaves belonged to a young boy. There is no way he could have carried five loaves that were large enough to feed five thousand men. Keep in mind that the women and children who were fed that day weren’t even counted, so it’s possible Jesus fed more than twenty thousand people. Also, the boy’s two fish fed everyone as well. Unless those fish were multiplied by Jesus, they must have been extremely large fish to feed so many people! Finally, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of what was left over. One young boy couldn’t have carried even a fraction of the leftovers.

Q. Why do you suppose Jesus instructed the disciples to collect all the leftovers?

A. Perhaps so everyone would see that food had been multiplied. Also, Jesus stated that He didn’t want any of the food to be wasted. God wants us to be good stewards of what He gives us as well, not wasting things unnecessarily. (Also, God doesn’t want us to be litterbugs!)

Q. What do you think Jesus did with the leftovers?

A. I would guess that He gave some to the little boy whose loaves and fish He multiplied. He may also have given some to designated people in the crowd to distribute to the poor. And He may have kept some for His disciples and Himself to eat later.

Application: Has God given you a gift? Offer it to Him to be used as He sees fit, and He’ll use you to bless other people.

Do you remember the story we read a few days ago when Jesus and His disciples were caught in a violent storm in a boat on the Sea of Galilee? After He rebuked the wind and waves, Jesus rebuked His disciples for their lack of faith. They had been filled with fear, even though Jesus was asleep and had clearly said they were going to the other side. He expected them to believe His Word. In the similar story we just read, there was one thing that was different from the start: Jesus was not in the boat with them. This time they were on their own!

Certainly the disciples were in the center of God’s will that night, rowing across the Sea of Galilee. They were just following Jesus’ orders. And certainly God knew they would encounter threatening winds on their journey. He must have been giving them another opportunity to exercise their faith. From this story, we can learn what we should do when we face opposition that is hindering us from fulfilling God’s will.

According to John’s record of this same story, Jesus’ disciples had rowed about three-and-a-half miles when the wind and waves grew menacing (see John 6:19). Jesus, after spending time praying high on a mountainside, saw that “they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves” (Mark 6:48). They had been rowing for hours, and now it was the middle of the night. They were sleepy and their muscles were aching. They were probably yelling directions at each other to keep their boat from capsizing. In their own strength, they were trying to make it to shore, but it looked impossible.

There is no indication that any of them even tried to exercise any faith. No one suggested that they pray. No one said, “Let’s stop rowing and start praising God that we are going to make it to the other side, because we’ve been sent by Jesus to do just that.” No one attempted to rebuke the wind, imitating Jesus.

Jesus, after waiting until three o’clock in the morning, finally stepped out onto the water and began walking toward the same destination as His disciples. When they saw Him walking by, they were terrified, not recognizing Him in the darkness, thinking He must be a ghost! But Jesus tried to calm their fears by telling them who He was. That is when Peter requested that Jesus command him to walk on the water.

Jesus actually said only one word to Peter: “Come!” Before then, Peter had nothing to stand on but water, and had he stepped out of the boat, he would have immediately sunk. But once Jesus spoke, Peter could stand on the Word of God. By faith, he stepped out of the boat and began walking toward Jesus on the water. He was literally walking by faith. When did Peter begin to sink? It was when he doubted. And why did he doubt? Because he began looking at the high waves around him, becoming fearful.

This is a great illustration of how we can walk by faith. When we have a promise from God to believe, it makes no difference what our circumstances are saying to us. God’s Word is always true, and if we’ll believe in spite of our circumstances, we’ll experience the blessings God promises. If we doubt, however, we may well begin to go down, just like Peter.

Peter almost made it all the way to Jesus. When he began to doubt and sink, he cried out for Jesus to save him, and Jesus mercifully did. Praise God that even when our faith is failing, Jesus still loves us and will help us in our troubles.

Clearly it was Peter’s doubts and lack of faith that caused him to sink. Proud people would rather find something else to blame, and amazingly, they often blame God for their failures, claiming that failure must have been God’s will. I wonder what Jesus would have said if He had overheard Peter, once he was back in the boat, saying to the other disciples, “The reason I sank, of course, is because it wasn’t God’s will that I make it all the way to Jesus!”

Q. Jesus apparently wasn’t initially planning on rescuing His disciples from their predicament, because Mark’s Gospel said, “He started to go past them” (Mark 6:48), walking on the water right by their boat. Why do you suppose Jesus did that?

A. Perhaps because Jesus is so polite. He won’t get involved in people’s business unless they invite Him. This is a picture of many Christians. In the midst of life’s storms, they try to make it in their own strength, and Jesus walks right by, wishing they’d ask for His help. Have you invited Jesus into your boat?

Q. When Jesus and His disciples arrived on the shore of their destination, people soon began bringing all their sick to be healed. The Bible says that all who touched the fringe of Jesus’ robe were healed (see Matthew 14:36). What does this teach us about faith?

A. It was obviously God’s will for everyone who was healed to be healed, but each sick person had to exercise faith to receive what God wanted him to have. People who have faith will demonstrate their faith by their actions.

Application: Have you begun to sink in some area of your life because you’ve been doubting God? If so, look again at God’s promises regarding your situation, and get back up on the water by faith!

Herod Antipas, the man who ordered the execution of John the Baptist, was the son of a murderer. His father was Herod the Great, who had once killed his own wife and two of his sons to preserve his power. It was Herod the Great who had also ordered the killing of all the male babies in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus. With such an example set before him as a child, it is no wonder that Herod Antipas was a wicked man. He had fallen in love with his half-brother’s wife, Herodias, who also happened to be his niece, and she had fallen in love with him. So she divorced Herod Antipas’s brother and married him.

John the Baptist, a preacher of righteousness, had declared that what Herod and his new wife had done was a sin. Herodias hated John as a result of this and wanted him killed. But Herod’s conscience would not allow him to order John’s execution, and so he only had John put in prison as a favor to his selfish wife. He was under conviction for his sin and knew that John did not deserve to die.

Herod, however, made a foolish public oath to Herodias’s daughter, offering her anything she desired after she pleased him with a dance during his birthday party. Her mother instructed her to request John the Baptist’s head on a tray. Herod was trapped by his promise, and so he reluctantly ordered John’s beheading. A Roman soldier immediately carried out the gruesome task, and gave Herodias’s daughter John’s head on a tray. She in turn gave it to Herodias. What a sickening sight! Think how evil someone would have to be to desire such a thing!

Although this is a sad story, for John it had a happy ending, because he was in heaven, enjoying God’s presence, even before Herodias had possession of his head! The people I feel sorry for are Herod and Herodias, who, unless they experienced a repentance the Bible doesn’t record, have been in hell now for almost two thousand years.

Q. Is it possible for murderers to get into heaven?

A. Yes, but only if they repent and are saved by faith. Remember that Moses, David and Paul could all be considered murderers. However, any murderer who dies without repenting will spend eternity in hell. The apostle John wrote, “You know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them” (1 John 3:15).

Q. At present, the United States government says that it is legal for women to murder their babies before they’re born. Because it’s legal, does that make it O.K.?

A. No, because God has always said that murder is wrong. Murder is perhaps the highest expression of selfishness that exists, and murdering one’s own child is the most debased murder a person could commit. There are millions of mothers and fathers in America who are child-murderers. Their only hope of escaping hell is to repent and believe in Jesus. Praise God that He offers them forgiveness.

Application: Herod Antipas grew up having a murderer for a father. Herodias’s daughter grew up with a mother and stepfather who were murderers. Aren’t you glad you were born into your family? You are blessed to have parents who love Jesus and who are teaching you right from wrong.

Because Jesus’ love was so great, He wanted to serve everyone. He was limited, however, because He was only one human being. There were so many sick and demon-possessed people, and so many who needed to hear the good news and repent of their sins. So Jesus instructed His disciples to pray that God would send out more workers, and God answered their prayer by sending them!

Before Jesus sent them out to minister throughout the towns of Israel, He supernaturally equipped them for their job, giving them authority to cast out demons and heal every kind of disease and illness. He specifically commanded them to heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy and cast out demons. Jesus knew that miracles would get people’s attention to listen to His disciples’ message, just as in His own ministry (see Luke 9:6).

Their message was one of repentance (see Mark 6:12-13), which is not always a popular message, but nevertheless is an integral part of the gospel. Jesus knew that many people would reject His disciples, and He didn’t want them wasting their time trying repeatedly to reach unreceptive people. If a town or village didn’t receive them, they were to shake the dust off their feet and journey to another one. If God loves everyone, why should anyone have two opportunities to receive Christ until everyone has had at least one?

Jesus’ disciples weren’t allowed to take any money or extra provisions with them. That would teach them to rely on God to supply their needs, and also provide motivation for them not to stay long in places where their message wasn’t received, places where no one would feed or shelter them.

Jesus knew that His disciples would face the same persecutions He’d encountered. They would be slandered, hated and even killed. Some would face martyrdom because their own family members would betray them. We have no record in the Bible of this happening to any of the twelve, so perhaps it occurred after Jesus’ ascension into heaven. With the exception of Judas and John, it is thought that all of Jesus’ disciples died a martyr’s death.

Perhaps the most challenging words in Jesus’ commission were the standards He set for every one of His followers. He expects our fully committed allegiance. Our loyalty to Him should supersede the loyalty we have for the people we love the most, including our parents and children. Jesus knew that as a result of His coming, some households would be divided over Him. Unbelieving family members would turn against believing members. But true believers will not compromise their faith just to please their loved ones, because they love Jesus the most.

Incidentally, if Jesus wasn’t God, He was a horrible person, because only God would have a right to demand a higher love and devotion to Himself than what we show for our own families. Jesus said, “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it” (Matthew 10:39). He wasn’t talking about physically dying as a martyr, but of giving up our own agenda in order to obey Him, another way of describing repentance. If anyone refuses to repent, he will miss out on experiencing life as God intended and miss out on eternal life. But whoever will give his life to Jesus, submitting to Him, that person will experience a life that he was created to live, one that is enriched by God forever. Aren’t you glad you’ve given your life to Jesus?

Q. Jesus instructed His disciples to avoid preaching to Gentiles and Samaritans, ministering only to Jews (see Matthew 10:5-6). Why is that? Doesn’t God love non-Jewish people?

A. We don’t know the answer for sure, but we can be certain that it wasn’t because God didn’t or doesn’t love non-Jewish people. Jesus loves everyone and died for the whole world. Perhaps Jesus sent His disciples to minister to Jews because they would most likely be more receptive than other groups, having a faith in the Old Testament that promised them a Messiah. They would also be more likely to receive a message from Jesus’ Jewish messengers. God wants everyone to hear the gospel, and the quickest way for that to happen is to win the most receptive people who can then reach others. Jesus followed this strategy in His own ministry, ministering to Jews and then sending out some who believed. Later, Jesus commissioned His disciples to preach to all the ethnic groups of the world (see Matthew 28:19).

Q. Jesus said that we are to acknowledge Him before others, also saying that if we deny Him publicly, He would deny us before the Father. Does that mean there is no hope for us going to heaven if we, under pressure, say that we don’t know Jesus?

A. No, because God is merciful. No true Christian would deny Jesus at a time when he wasn’t under pressure, but a true believer might yield to the temptation to deny the Lord if his life was in danger. Under pressure, Peter denied the Lord three times, but Jesus forgave, restored and used him greatly afterwards.

Application: Today there is a need more than ever for workers to be sent into the harvest, as the world’s population is more than six billion people. That is five billion, eight hundred million more people than the number that lived on the earth when Jesus sent out His apostles. Pray today that God will send out more laborers who are supernaturally equipped to spread the gospel.