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Sometimes following Christ doesn't make any sense at all.  Have you been there?  Do you understand what I mean?

My name is Bill Lawrence, I'm president of Leader Formation International and I want to welcome you once again to LeaderVision where we seek to give leaders a vision for their hearts so they can make a difference for Christ with their heads and their hands. 

Think about what I said just a few moments ago.  It seems as if Jesus wants us to do something we could never  possible do.  We can't live up to His requirements.  We try to keep His commandments and yet we fail.  And the question that we need to look at is "why would He do this?"  Why does He give us things to do we could never do?  You know, we think that because we receive a command, we can do it.  It's just like everyone else in life.  If they tell us to do something, they tell us because they expect us to do it and they think we can.  But Jesus, on the other hand, tells us to do something and it looks as if He knows we can't do it but He does it anyway. 

Consider the feeding of the five thousand.  Remember?  He made His men face their inadequacy even though they already knew there was no way they could feed the five thousand.  They didn't have the food they needed.  They didn't have the resources they needed.  They had no way.  Even if they had the money, where could they go and find enough food to feed five thousand?  So it wasn't only an issue of money, it was an issue of other realities.  I mean, what store today can you go to and buy food to feed five thousand?  It was just never going to happen.  And He knew even as they knew they didn't have the resources to do what He was telling them to do.  Yet He said to them, "Go and see!"  Very firm, very clear,  very definitive.  No space, no way to argue, no way to say "wait a minute!"  He was not in a negotiating mode.  He was commanding them to go and see. 

Now why did He do this?  Why would He be so unreasonable?  Why would He make such a demand of us?  Because He wanted them to see the first reality of the altared heart.  We must do what we cannot do with what we do not have for the rest of our lives.  The feeding of the five thousand was not only a physical, historical event, it was also a picture.  It was a grand, living metaphor of the reality of serving Christ, walking with Him and living for Him.  And it was a statement that says Jesus is going to give us things to do we cannot do.  In fact, the only things He can give us to do are things we cannot do.  Why do I say that?  Because what else could the Son of God give us?  He's involved in profoundly significant, way beyond natural demands, and battles and warfare.  He's dealing with evil, He's dealing with those who hate Him, who hate His Father, who have far more power than we'll ever be able to muster.  And He says to us, you must go against that power on My behalf.  We can't do that.   We don't' have the resources.  But that's what He expects. 

But that's not the end.  That's not where we're going to stay.  Because there's something else we need to see.  We need to move from the first reality to the second reality.  But to see it, we have to go back to the feeding of the five thousand for just a few moments.  It's in Mark chapter 6 at verse 41.  The disciples have gone and they have seen.  They have brought the five loaves and the two fish to Him and they have asked simply the most logical, rational question they could ever ask.  "But what is this among so many" (cf. John 6:9).  Yet Jesus directed them to break the group into fifties and have them sit down.  And you know the most amazing thing?  Those disciples did what He told them to do.  Isn't that stunning? 

But they're beginning to learn about how the first reality works...

 

 

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