God Delivers, but We are Asked to Be Part of the Process

"For surely I know the plans I have for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope for you, says the Lord." Jeremiah 29:11

"When we hear God say through the prophets, For Surely, we believe and the Hebrews believed that this is a certainty...They never lost sight and never lost faith in the fact that God would ultimately deliver on God's promises to them."

"One of my favorite parables--It's recorded as a miracle in the Gospels--the feeding of the 5,000, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. A Jesus scholar, John Dominic Crossen, shares that story, not as a miracle so much as a parable. What would happen if we take the loaves and the fishes or any resources that we have and actually bless them and then distribute them as a blessing of Jesus.

The people were invited to have all that they had in order to feed all who were there. And Jesus could have waived a hand. The miracle would have been that suddenly enough fishes and loaves appeared...But there's a process that requires our active participation. Jesus said, "Give me what you have.' They brought it forward, he blessed it, and then he said, "You go and distribute it, you do the work." Once they distributed it in accordance with Jesus wanted them to do, there was not only enough, but there was an abundance.  An abundance of sufficiency in baskets left over..."