John 6:12-13 (ESV)

And when they had eaten their fill, he told the disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

We have a tendency to overeat in America. We finish our first plate…and go back for more. Then when we finally finish, we wonder why we ate so much in the first place! I don’t know which is worse—having too much to eat or only getting enough to whet your appetite. When Jesus is involved, you get to “eat your fill.”

It must have been quite the feast, as simple as it was. I sometimes wonder how this famous miracle actually manifested in the presence of the massive crowd. You get passed a loaf of barley and a small fish then when you turn to your neighbor there are suddenly two loaves and two fishes in your hand? The baskets didn’t enter the picture until after the people finished eating, so maybe the disciples were just handing out as quickly as they could and every single person they handed to began to see the multiplying, too! It probably resembled a Christmas Eve service as candles are lit across the sanctuary in multiplying fashion. But in this case, you received as much as you wanted until you were full.

Jesus was generous, giving everyone as much as they wanted. Generosity should mark the Christian life as much as love or patience or joy. We should be generous with our time…our resources…our hospitality…our desire to serve. We should be generous with encouragement…with understanding…with our willingness to listen. Jesus was SO generous that there were leftovers after 20,000 people had eaten their fill…but he wasn’t wasteful. They gathered up what was left…a deposit on future generosity. Do the people in your life get to “eat their fill “when it comes to the blessings you can offer them?

Jesus demonstrated to his disciples—and the crowd— the giving character of God.  The same character God desires to build within us. Proverbs 11:24 says, “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.” This bread was multiplied as it was “scattered.” Yet, this miracle is about far more than bread…it is really about the Bread of Life…Jesus giving generously of himself to satisfy the true need of every person that will ever walk the face of this earth.

The Gospel is what we must be most generous in distributing. People are spiritually starving to death all around us and we have the Bread that can save them. Spurgeon captured this reality well in his sermon entitled, “Compassion for the Multitude”:

Behold before you, disciples of Christ, this very day, thousands of men, and women, and children, who are hungering for the bread of life. They hunger till they faint. They spend their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not. They fall down famished in your highways, perishing for lack of knowledge. See ye, disciples of Christ, see ye the great need which is before your eyes. Open the eyes of your understanding now, let your bowels move, let your hearts beat with sympathy, let your souls be alive to pity, — do feel for those millions! I beseech you, if you cannot help them, weep over them; let there be now before your mind’s eye a clear and distinct recognition of the many hundreds and thousands who are crying to you, “Feed us, for we famish; give us bread to eat, or we die.”