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The Ministry of Health and Healing
The Savior has not promised His followers the luxuries of the world.
They may even suffer poverty, but His word is pledged that their
need shall be supplied. He has promised that which is better than
earthly good—the abiding comfort of His own presence.
After the multitude had been fed, there was an abundance of
food left. Jesus told His disciples, “‘Gather up the fragments that
remain, so that nothing is lost.’”
John 6:12
. These words meant more
than putting the food into baskets. The lesson was twofold. Nothing
is to be wasted. We are to prize every temporal advantage. We
should neglect nothing that would serve to benefit a human being.
Let everything be gathered up that will relieve the necessities of
earth’s hungry ones. With the same carefulness we are to treasure
the bread from heaven to satisfy the needs of the soul. By every
word of God we are to live. Nothing that God has spoken is to be
lost. Not one word that concerns our eternal salvation are we to
neglect. Not one word is to fall useless to the ground.
The miracle of the loaves teaches dependence upon God. When
Christ fed the five thousand, food was not close at hand. Apparently
He had no funds to draw on. There He was, with five thousand
men, besides women and children, in the wilderness. He had not
invited the multitude to follow Him to this place. Eager to be in
His presence, they had come without invitation or command; but He
knew that after listening all day to His instruction they were hungry
and faint. They were far from home, and the night was at hand.
Many of them were without money to purchase food. He who for
their sake had fasted forty days in the wilderness would not consent
for them to return fasting to their homes.
The providence of God had placed Jesus where He was, and He
depended on His heavenly Father for means to meet the emergency.
When we are brought into crisis situations, we are to depend on God.
In every emergency we are to seek help from Him who has infinite
resources at His command.
In this miracle, Christ received from the Father and imparted to
the disciples. The disciples imparted to the people, and the people
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to one another. So all who are united to Christ will receive from
Him the bread of life and impart it to others. His disciples are the
appointed means of communication between Christ and the people.