Good Morning and welcome to today's Daily Scripture Word!

I want to continue my thought from yesterday, so let's look at those same verses:

• Matthew 14:13-14, “When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”

You might recall from yesterday how I mentioned these verses are both the opening lines to the event we call The Feeding of The Five Thousand, but also how these verses came about in a time of great grief.  John the Baptist had just been killed by a beheading.  And why?  For preaching the truth!  DARING to suggest that stealing another Man's Wife is wrong!

Pulling away to process this grief, Jesus and His Disciples instead find themselves mobbed again - even though they had pulled back into the desert!  SEEING THEM, answer this: did Jesus send them away telling them He needed time to grieve, to recoup, mourn the loss of John the Baptist? No. What did Jesus do? He received them anyhow! Why? Because our God is a compassionate God! John 6:37 records Jesus saying,

• “…him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

Compassion is usually a response to some issue that we can see and so we move from God being sensitive to emotions (yesterday's lesson) to God being sensitive to physical needs. Here in Matthew 14 I see three physical needs:

• V14 – I see sick people;
• V15 – I see hungry people;
• V19 – I see tired people.

In each case Jesus ministers to these people’s needs. Now, I don’t know about you, but as I walk around our beautiful city of Toowoomba, I see these three groups every day.  I see the sick – the sin-sick, that is!

• Hosea 5:13 reads, “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.”

OH HOW PEOPLE RUN TO MANY DIFFERENT PLACES to have this SIN-SICKNESS CURED, yet so few run to Calvary – the only place the cure can be found! Jesus said,

• “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” John 10:28 

I walk around Toowoomba and I see the hungry – the hungry souls crying out for the Bread of Life!

• Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
• John 6:47-48, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life.”

I keep on walking and see the tired and weary – the tired and weary of life! Yet I turn over to Matthew 11:28 and here the Saviour patiently calling still:

• “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Why is it that though we see Jesus meeting the needs of these people here in Matthew 14, we don’t see it happening today? Has God stopped being God?  Has His power been limited?  Is God dead?  I say No!  I say, the issue isn't God, the issue is His disciples are not participating with Him in the crowd!  Though one here and two there are being snatched from the fires of hell, by-and-large the disciples of Jesus are just sitting back enjoying the show!

Hey Christian – do you find comfort in the fact that Jesus not only knows about your troubles, He feels your pain? Well, did you know that over in I Peter 3:8, you are instructed to be moved with compassion just like Jesus was? Did you know that over in II Corinthians 5:18 you have been commissioned to serve in the Ministry of Reconciliation – reconciling the sin sick, hungry and tired back to Our Loving and Compassionate God? Then why aren’t you?