Matthew 14: 19 – 20
He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, and they all ate and were satisfied.
God has done some pretty incredible things. I am thinking about creation for one. From nothing He made everything, or did He? Hebrews 11: 3 tells us that God made the universe and all that is seen from that which is unseen, or invisible. Well, that makes sense. Even our own bodies are made of molecules too small to be seen. We are not, however, made from nothing. God isn’t a magician making rabbits or flowers appear out of thin air. He is a sower. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Once sown, that seed becomes the largest plant in the garden.
Why am I telling you this? When you understand how God approaches things, it will help you understand the Bible and help you to tackle things in your own realm. You will be able to operate the same way God does and you won’t even need magic to do it.
In the story from today’s verse, Jesus fed about 20,000 people from two fish and five loaves of bread. How does one do that? It is called multiplication, but God multiplies in exponential numbers. He works by taking what you have and expanding it. He isn’t making something from nothing. He takes the little we have and makes a surplus, over and above all we can think or ask. After everyone was satisfied, the disciples went around and picked up the leftovers ending up with twelve baskets full.
So, imagine creation. Yahweh didn’t pull humans, zebra, giraffes, or crickets out of a magic hat. He created by sowing seed. It’s what He does. We didn’t just “pop” into existence. He had a plan and He instituted it and la voila, here we are. Think about that. He has a plan for you too. Jeremiah 29: 11 tells us that He has good plans for us, plans to give us hope and a good future. Yahoo! How will He do that? He is planting seeds all of the time.
Now, do you want to know a secret? He made you in His image and He expects you to move in the earth in the same manner as He. That is to say, He wants to teach you to plan and plant seeds too. What do you want? Plant a seed. Think about this and get excited. If you plant one tomato seed and it germinates and grows into a plant, how many seeds will that one plant generate? One source says the average tomato has between 150 and 300 seeds, though sometimes even more. Okay, so don’t eat all of the tomatoes. Even if you only plant the seeds from one tomato from your first plant that is 150 seeds minimum. If only half of them germinate and produce a plant, then you’ve got 75 fruit yielding plants in addition to the one you began with. Okay, what if you plant just one tomato from each of these plants. Now you have 150 X 76 which equals 11,400 seeds. Are you kidding me here? You are going to have a lot of tomatoes!
So what if it isn’t tomatoes that you need? Well, of course that was an example so let’s get real, but first I have to ask you a question. Do you believe Jesus and everything he said? Jesus taught this same principle. Matthew 13: 8 reads, “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” These are red letter words. Jesus starts with a hundredfold return, then adds, sixty and thirty percent returns. So, let’s just rely on a thirty percent return. Are your current investments returning 30%? If so, call me.
What if you take one dollar and sow it into the good soil of God’s Kingdom? The worst you can do is a thirty-dollar return. Take out your one dollar seed and you’ve made twenty-nine dollars. Now what do you do? Don’t go out and buy a thirty-dollar shirt. That is what most of us do. We consume our seed. Instead, sow more seed. What if you sowed all thirty dollars? That would then yield 30 X 30, right? Now you have nine hundred dollars. What if you sowed all nine hundred dollars? Now you have twenty-seven thousand dollars. Just imagine if you got the sixty or hundredfold return.
So here in my point. God is not a magician, He is a multiplier. He takes what He has and makes universes and humans and trees and animals with it. He takes what you give Him and He expands it. When you understand that this is the way God operates it will change your life. For one, you are going to understand Him and the Bible unlike ever before. Second, it will set you free. Sow into Him. Let Him be your investment counselor. I only showed you this truth through the examples of money and tomatoes, but it works for everything. Again I ask, what do you need? What do you want? Put on your overalls and start farming. For goodness sake, get out there and start sowing some seeds.