Make sure your bread goes to the back row

On one hand you have thousands of hungry people - men, women and children.
On the other hand, a young boy. We don’t know where this boy is from, what his name is or how old he is. However this is what we do know: he has 5 loaves of bread and two fish, which he probably kept inside a small basket.

What he has, he gives to Jesus. This boy’s simple act of obedience is the key to a miracle.

I want to invite you to look up and see the masses of hungry faces, where you live and beyond, who until this day have still never had the opportunity to hear the Good News of the Gospel. 20% of the world’s population are caught in the grip of Islam, 15% are under the shadow of Hinduism.

Look in your hands. You and I have a basket. We have gifts and talents God has blessed us with. Some of us have one fish. Some of us have a fish and a piece of bread. Others have been blessed with 4 or 5 loaves of bread.

You can either be so overwhelmed with the needs that you keep your talents to yourself, or you can let Jesus take your life and use it to bring the Bread of Heaven to a lost world.

There are too many Christians today who are keeping their basket to themselves. Their fish is rotting. Their loaf of bread has gone stale. They will die with a basket full or rotten gifts.

The greatest tragedy in the Church today is having millions of Christians holding onto a basket while a huge portion of the world’s population is dying of spiritual famine.

Jesus’ disciple, Andrew, after seeing the small amount of food the boy had, said: ‘What good are five loaves and two fish for such a huge crowd?’ Andrew should have known better. Do not let anyone look down on you and on the gifts God as blessed you with. Don’t let anyone’s ‘wisdom’ hinder you from going out to serve Jesus.

The city of Birmingham in England is known for Cadburys, one of the world’s most
famous chocolate brand. Its founder, Richard Cadbury, had a daughter called Helen. Almost a century ago, when Helen was 13 she went along with her father to a mission hall he had built in a poor area of the city. That Sunday evening she responded to the preacher’s invitation to trust in Jesus. Immediately she wanted to share her faith with her school friends. She put her Bible on her desk ‘to show what God said, rather than what I thought’. Her friends started to turn their lives to Christ. Within two years, Helen had founded the ‘Pocket Testament League’ (PTL). When Helen got married, she and her American husband Charles traveled the world, sharing the Gospel. Millions of copies of John’s Gospel were distributed through PTL missionaries in Japan and Germany following World War 2. The pilot who led Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Mitsuo Fuchida, became a Christian after reading a PTL Gospel of John. Today PTL works in 25 different countries. And it all stared when a young girl gave the little she had to serve Jesus.

Just go back with me to the story of the feeding of the 5000. A Norwegian evangelist working mainly in Africa shares the following analogy: Imagine that the story had actually been different from what we know it in Scripture. Jesus fills the disciple’s baskets. They go and share the food with the people sitting in rows on the grass. They start with the first row. Everyone in the first row get their share. Then they go onto the second row and the third row. By then the baskets are empty, so the disciples go back to Jesus who fills them with more fish and more bread. Philip, Andrew and the others go back to the people but instead of going to the fourth row, they start from the first row again. They serve row number 1, number 2 and number 3. Their baskets are once again empty. They go back to Jesus. He fills the baskets again. All day long, until the sun goes down, only the first three rows were being served. What do you think the people in the back rows would have said? ‘Hey! What’s going on here? How is it those in the front rows are being served again and again while we haven’t had any food yet!?’

Thankfully this is not what happened .We all know the story.

The tragic fact is, this is what is happening across the Christian world today. Most
churches are serving the front rows, again and again and again while over 2 billion souls are still waiting in the back rows for a single piece of bread. 87 % of all mission work and finances is still going out to peoples and nations who have
heard the Gospel over and over again.

God is looking for men, women and children who will make the back row their priority.

Oswald Smith said: ‘Why should some hear the Gospel twice when others have never heard it even once?’

A friend of mine from Scotland has been reaching out for many years to the nomads in Northern Chad. She is the only missionary among 250 000 Muslims in that region. She sleeps in tent and travels through the desert. She is bringing Jesus to the back rows.

Don’t spend the rest of your life on the front row. Millions are hungry in Chad, in Libya, in Tajikistan, in Oman, in Turkey, in Japan. They have the right to the Bread of Life.

I invite you to pray, ‘Lord, if you can use the young boy of the Gospel you can use
me. I give you my bread and my fish. Take my life and use me. I respond to the
Call to go to the back row, wherever that may be. I will never lack bread as you
will faithfully provide as I faithfully serve you. In Your Name I go’