Have you ever felt that you weren’t giving enough to the Lord? The Old Covenant required the Jews to give a tithe—ten percent. But the New Covenant requires 100%. Though I am not speaking of money, how you spend your money is a good indication of where your heart is: “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). I am speaking of your life: Jesus wants it all (Rom. 12:1: 1 Cor. 6:20).
John’s gospel account illustrates this principle (Jn. 6). At the end of a day when people were tired and hungry, the disciples wanted to send them away to the villages to buy their own food. But Jesus insisted that they feed the people (5,000 men, plus unnumbered women and children). When Jesus asked Phillip where they could buy enough bread for all the people to eat, Phillip began to hyper-ventilate (John says Jesus was testing him!). But Peter came to Phillip's rescue by finding a young boy whose mother had prepared him a lunch of 5 little loaves of bread and 2 fishes. I wonder how reassuring that was to Phillip!?
Of course you know how the story ends: not only was everyone fed but there were 12 baskets of left-over’s. (Wouldn't it have been fitting to give the left-over's to Phillip?) By turning the boy's meager lunch into abundance, Jesus was teaching Phillip (and us) this lesson: He doesn’t need a lot from us; but He requires all we have.
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