Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser
David rightly said the Lord is my portion, which means if you have God, you have all sufficiency. God’s word is sufficient, and His love is sufficient, so we have all we need. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Mat. 6:33). The Bible says seek the kingdom and all other things shall be added to you. Not some things but all things. So, we should give God our best; our best time, and our best of everything.
He is God of more than enough: spiritually, materially, physically, emotionally, and He is an all-sufficient God to deal with every situation that you are facing or may be facing. Believe Him to fulfil His purpose in your life. Jesus came to give us abundant life because He is more than enough. When dealing with God, the sky is the limit, but sadly we limit God by our small thinking. We limit God by our misunderstanding and lack of faith. We have been taught to limit ourselves to only what God can do in the physical natural realm, and we don’t go beyond that.
God is all sufficient, don’t limit Him to what you see in the physical. Let me give you an example in the gospel. The feeding of the five thousand men described in Mark 6 where thousands of people were coming to hear Jesus. They had been with Him all day long. 35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” (Mark 6:35-37).
His disciples came to Him and said it’s too late, send them away. But Jesus said you feed them. With what Jesus? You are asking us to feed thousands of people but with what? We have to work for months to earn enough money to be able to feed these people. “And they said to him, shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworths of bread, and give them to eat? (Mark 6:37). Immediately when God gave them command, they limited Him to the physical resources that they had. A penny was a day’s wage, so two hundred pennies were worth two hundred days wage to feed the multitude. They limited God because they only looked at their own resources. What they should have done was to recognise that they had God right there in their presence and He was Sufficient.
He was limitless and He could supply their needs beyond their physical financial ability. God is all sufficient, don’t limit Him to what you see in the physical. The disciples had been with Jesus, and they knew Him 24/7. They had seen Him do miracles before. They had seen Him do incredible things. He talked with them, He ate with them, and they knew His values. They witnessed the amazing things He did, yet they needed to learn to put their trust in Him. What’s God asking you to give? What’s God asking you to let go? What’s God asking you to do?
Are you frightened to put your trust in Jesus wholeheartedly? They told Jesus the crowd must be hungry. They said Jesus, let them go and find something to eat. Jesus then turned to them and said, you feed them. This seemed impossible. How could they feed the multitude with nothing? This was why there were so many responses from the disciples if you read all four gospels.
All their responses summed up to the fact that, they wanted to get rid of the problem by sending them away. Let’s send them away, they said. Let’s release them to go and find their own food. One of them said the cost is too much, we can’t feed them. It’s impossible, it will take more than six months wages to feed them. We don’t have enough. They kept thinking logically about how to overcome the situation. How many of us act the same way? Whenever you are faced with what seems impossible, do you try to always work it out logically?
The disciples had walked with Jesus and seen many miracles, but they were trying to work this particular situation out logically. When you put logic into the picture, you push the supernatural out. You push the miracle out. There cannot be any logic where there’s supernatural. The problem with many of us is, our first thinking is logic: our own resources, and our own strength. You see, faith and logic cannot work together. The disciples were coming with their logic, but Jesus was saying, you feed them.
" If God is asking you to do big things for Him, don’t limit Him by looking at your resources "
God is all sufficient. If He is asking you to do big things for Him, don’t limit Him by looking at your resources. By saying God, I don’t have enough money, you are limiting Him by looking at what you have the resources to do. You need to believe that God can provide you with extra. “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph. 3:20). He can make you sufficient in all things so you may abound in every good work. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).
I know that there are people that God has more for. God wants you to reach out and touch people’s lives and make a difference and yet many times we limit God because of our small thinking. Many times, we think of poverty and yes, it takes money to accomplish what God calls us to do. But if it’s God’s desire, then get to that position where you do what you need to do and the money will be there.
You can either live down here and think poor and barely get along or you can begin to think bigger and do what you need to do, and the money will be there for that. We limit God when we try to accomplish God’s will out of our own resources. If you are doing what God has told you to do, God will supernaturally supply. This was what He said to the disciples. He said you give them something to eat. And immediately, they pulled their wallets out, oh God we don’t have enough money.
37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five-and two fish.” 39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. (Mark 6:37-40).
He sent His disciples into the crowd to see what was there. They came back and reported that they had gotten a lad who had five loaves of bread and two fish. This was food in abundance. This was more sufficient even though it was meant to feed one person. We are talking about the all-sufficient God. This food was a lunch for a little boy but it was sufficient to feed thousands of people because the all-sufficient God can produce extra (see Eph. 3:20).
God is all sufficient, don’t limit Him to what you see in the physical natural realm. “41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand” (Mark 6:41-44).
41And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all. The Bible says He looked up and blessed what He had instead of cursing it. Whatever God has given you, bless it because He is an all-sufficient God. Most of us will say, Lord, I know you told me to do this, but I don’t have enough and we will curse it. We say this is not sufficient, so we curse what’s in our hands. We curse what we have instead of blessing it. Jesus only had five loaves and two fish. He didn’t have more than the disciples had, but He blessed what He had instead of cursing it.
He looked up, it’s more than talking about He raised His head. Do you know what He did? He saw past the five loaves and the two fish. And He looked past the physical into the spiritual. Jesus saw the five loaves and two fish as sufficient to feed the five thousand men. Of course, there were women and children. There may be at least fifteen thousand people, and He saw this little bit of food as being sufficient to feed all the people, because He saw on the inside rather than on the outside.
Not only did they feed these people, but they also gave them second, third, and as much as they wanted, and they took twelve baskets full of fragments left over. When you look up, you can see beyond what’s happening, you are able to see that God is more than sufficient. Your spiritual understanding will be enlightened. So, learn to always look up to see your all-sufficient God whenever you are faced with a problem!
