"How many loaves do you have?"

A great crowd of people (several thousand) had been following Jesus for three days, learning about the kingdom of God, witnessing Jesus perform miracles, healing, and casting out demons. After three days, they, Jesus, and the disciples found themselves in a desolate place and out of food. Jesus had compassion on the crowd and told the disciples He did not want to send them away hungry.

And His disciples answered Him, "How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?" And He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" They said, "Seven." - Mark 8:4-5

If you are familiar with this account, you know what followed. The people sat down, Jesus blessed the bread, broke it, and the disciples set it before all the people and all were fed, both bread and fish, and they took up leftovers and gathered them in seven baskets full.

The simple message I believe the Holy Spirit was getting across to me yesterday as I read this account is this: often we feel just like those disciples. The seven loaves and the few fish we have seem so small, so weak, and so insignificant. They are all we have, but it seems futile to even try and do anything with them when we see the great need before us. But then Jesus asks us, "How many loaves do you have?"

Now, God is certainly not limited in how He works. He can create something out of nothing. He created the universe out of nothing. But, here we see an example of the Lord taking something ordinary and natural - the disciples bread and fish - and doing something supernatural - feeding thousands with it. Often we tend to think we need to have something supernatural to give, or have supernatural power to perform the works of God. The problem is that the supernatural does not come from us, does not originate from us - it comes from God. He is willing to perform the supernatural through us, working in partnership with us, but the means He uses may be natural, like the bread. He takes the natural and exercises His power over it - the supernatural. We do our part, the natural, submitting it to Jesus, and He does what we cannot do - the supernatural.

Sign the petition for the release of 2 Iranian women jailed for their faith

Maryam Rustampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh have been jailed in Iran since March 5th of 2009. Their crime? Being Christian in a Muslim nation. Throughout their imprisonment, they have suffered ill health, solitary confinement, and hours of interrogation while blind-folded. On August 9th, they appeared before a court and were questioned about their faith and were urged to recant their faith in Jesus Christ verbally and in written form. After affirming their faith in Christ before the court, they were sent back to prison and told by the deputy prosecutor to think about their options and come back to him when they are ready to comply. They replied that they "have already done their thinking."
A petition you can sign petitioning for the release of these two women can be found here: http://www.wnd.com/petition_iran

This is a clear violation of human rights and religious liberty. Incidents such as these (and worse) are happening more and more frequently in Iran and all over the world. If we remain silent on issues such as these, it won't be but a few decades and we'll see this same imposition of dhimmitude right here in America; we can already see it happening in Europe.

Please pray for these young women, and please sign the petition. For more information on their story, visit http://www.adnamis.org/story.cfm?story_id=203