A daily, Bible-based message of hope and encouragement.
 A daily, Bible-based message of hope, encouragement and exhortation. Click here to support our ministry.The online Bible teaching ministry of Stephen & Brooksyne Weber. <Previous Message · Archive edition Tuesday, August 13, 2013  After a day of hard work harvesting tomatoes "The Blessing Of Leftover Fragments"  Listen to this message on your audio player"And when they had eaten their fill, He told His disciples, ‘Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten” (John 6:12,13).  Late yesterday afternoon we took a long walk and ended up on Colebrook Road. We stopped by the produce wagon where our neighbors sell their home-grown vegetables throughout the summer. Our lead photo shows them unloading a truck of tomatoes freshly harvested from the fields. Harvesting is hard work and you can see how it can be a bit messy as well. Nevertheless we found the young girls and their older brother working with joy and they seemed pleased in our interest in their work. Even their dog, who looks alot like our Mollie, was in the middle of the action.My Mom grew up during the Great Depression and like many in that generation was very resourceful and thrifty. It's a characteristic that I didn't always appreciate as a child but now see it as an outlook many in that generation had as a means of survival. My Mom insisted we eat all the food on our plates and then if there was any left on the serving platters we could expect to have them in another meal as "leftovers". God has blessed me with a wife who is also very resourceful. She grew up in a large family in rural Oklahoma that worked hard just to get by including tending a full acre of garden. Through our thirty-seven years of marriage I have seen her resourcefulness demonstrated again and again. Once I was illustrating resourcefulness in a sermon and spoke of how she made delicious banana bread out of some ripe tomatoes that others would likely throw out. When I misspeak I am often clueless till I see the restrained chuckles throughout the congregation. Later people were asking Brooksyne for her banana bread recipe using ripe tomatoes! (Of course I meant to say "ripe bananas".) Resourcefulness and thriftiness are virtues that are diminishing today. There are many homes where the leftover food on serving platters is scraped into the garbage without a second thought. Let us examine a detail today having to do with resourcefulness. It comes from a Bible portion many of us remember from childhood; our Lord's miracle of feeding the multitude. Jesus fed the multitude of five thousand men plus their wives and children with only five loaves of barley bread and two small fish generously donated by a young lad (presumably the proper amount of food a caring mother thought adequate for her child's lunch).  After a prayer of thanks by Jesus and distribution of the meal the people "had eaten their fill." The scene changed from a "What are we going to eat?" dilemma into a veritable "All you can eat" feast. No skimpy portions here! That's just like our Lord. He truly satisfies! Psalm 107:9 says, "For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things."Then Jesus does something each account of the miracle records. He instructed His disciples to go through the crowd and collect the leftover fragments. That's amazing to me. Why was He concerned with the leftover fragments, when He could do the same thing the next day and every day that follows? Perhaps Jesus instructed the disciples to collect the leftovers to illustrate that more food was actually left over after the meal was served than they had in the beginning. Even after the people ate, there was an accounting and the pieces of the original five barley loaves filled twelve baskets! That's pretty neat, but I don't think that's the main reason. We find that in Jesus' instruction when He said, "that nothing may be lost". Another version states, "Let nothing be wasted". I just wonder if a number of excited folks took "doggie bags" home that day and had some mighty good bread later and an even better story to tell those who were not present at the miraculous luncheon! (Interesting detail: There is no mention of leftover fish collected. Perhaps because the fish would spoil rapidly whereas bread would be useful for several days.) Resourcefulness is one more way we can live in obedience to God. Let us be careful to look for opportunities to be more resourceful and prove to be good stewards of all that God has entrusted to us. Remember, God can use the leftover fragments! Be encouraged today, Stephen & Brooksyne Weber  Daily prayer: Father, we marvel at the miracles Jesus performed, as recorded in the New Testament. Taking a young boy's small lunch and feeding 5,000 men along with their wives and families can only result from Your supernatural work. And then to have leftovers from such a setting is even more amazing. Just as the disciples and the crowd learned so much about Jesus through His feeding of the crowd, we too learn that nothing is impossible with You. We also learn from this story that You are a resourceful God when Jesus instructed that the leftovers be collected "so that nothing is wasted". Help us to be good stewards of all that You provide for us showing us how to be creative and generous toward others as well. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.In my younger years I observed and worked alongside hard-working farmers who tend to be very resourceful. I recall how many uses a farmer could find for baling wire. My father-in-law was such a proponent of baling wire that he had it wrapped around trees on his property in Arkansas in preparation for a future use. The problem is the trees grew and he was unable to get the wire off! "Just Ordinary People" Video Danniebelle Hall A reminder that God uses the leftover fragments in our lives when we offer them to Him. "Come and Dine The Master Calleth" Video The Happy Goodmans We rarely hear this song anymore but when I began ministry in the seventies we gathered as ministers for a monthly fellowship time. Our leader was David Selleck, an older pastor who always sang this song before we had our lunch. "Little Is Much" Video Gaither Vocal Band As I located this song this morning I noticed an altogether inappropriate ad was used prior to the video. These are inserted by Vimeo not the artists!!!)  Send a message to Stephen & Brooksyne. |
 Stephen and Brooksyne Weber (Click on photo to enlarge) "We want to encourage you daily in your walk with Christ!" Personal Ministry Update (Revised 12/31/12)  Are our daily encouragement messages a blessing to you? Each weekday morning Brooksyne and I prepare these messages and distribute them at no cost to you and many others all over the world. We ask you to consider an offering to Daily Encouragement Net so that we can continue to prepare and provide this daily resource which is accessed by believers and seekers all over the world. Daily Encouragement Net relies solely on the generosity and financial support of its readers and podcast listeners. See here for more information on supporting this ministry. Gifts are tax deductible. Click here to donate online. 2013 YTD financial offerings to Daily Encouragement Net as of 8/12/13: $12,418.00 SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION  If a friend forwarded this to you, you can subscribe here.These messages are never sent by us unsolicited. It was sent to you because you either signed up to receive it OR it was forwarded to you. You can also subscribe to the Wordpress rss feed or as an email subscription through Wordpress email subscription. (See the email subscription on the right side after opening this page.) Cancel: These messages are only sent from us to people who request it; please accept our apologies if it reached you in error. You can unsubscribe from this list at any time. If you no longer desire to receive these messages you can remove your address from the list by merely using the link automatically inserted by the mailing list software at the very bottom of each email message. (To change addresses cancel your old address and then join again using your new address.) Weekly Version: The weekly version is intended for those who may not check their email regularly or who may desire less frequent mailings. It is Friday's message with a link to previous messages. To receive the free weekly version, send a blank email to this address. Daily Encouragement on Facebook and Twitter:  The daily message and prayer on Facebook. The daily message and prayer on Twitter.Reader Survey: Please take a few minutes to assist us in improving our ministry effectiveness by filling out this online reader survey. To take the survey click here. Please feel free to pass these messages on! Our other blogs: "A Daily Prayer" - A blog simply posting the daily prayer. We keep this up each day since it's merely the prayer from the Daily Encouragement Net message! "A Little Foolishness" - Humor/satire blog (a great outlet for non-serious writing but at times with a subtle message!) (Note: This material is satire!) "Clear Minded" - Longer, periodic articles on specific issues impacting the faithful believer and church. (Actually this is my intent but I haven't done much with it!) "Hymns of Hope" - Brooksyne along with two friends made a CD using classic hymns. Brooksyne tells the background story of the 11 hymns. All of these songs are also available for download on the site. Personal Mission Statement "I am created by God to bring Him glory. Through God's Son Jesus Christ I have been redeemed and I make it my life's goal to please the Lord. My mission in life is to honor God through my faith and obedience and to prepare myself and all whom I may influence for eternity."  How to become a child of God Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. © 1984 by International Bible Society; NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. and the King James Version. Other versions are also occasionally used. © Copyright 2013 Stephen C. Weber - All Rights Reserved Daily Encouragement Net Stephen & Brooksyne Weber 495 Kraybill Church Road - Mount Joy, PA 17552  Endorsed chaplain "Living securely today anchored in God's solid foundation" www.dailyencouragement.net |
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