"Snap Your Finger Praying"

# 483 - Today's Living Word comes from: Mr 8:1-3, “In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, 2 "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 "And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."

If you have a map in your Bible, it would do you well to look at it to help you understand the state of these people. Jesus had traveled from the cities of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean Sea, then east and south to the area known as Decapolis, and then to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. He had picked up a “multitude” along the way. They had been with Him here by the Sea of Galilee for three days and had run out of any food they may have brought along with them . They were hungry, just as you or I would be.

So Jesus calls His disciples to Him. (Which usually means He has a teachable moment for them and us as well.) And He says, “I have compassion on the multitude.”

Why the big announcement Jesus? Why not just snap your fingers and take away their hunger? Because this is the teachable moment. COMPASSION DEMANDS A PHYSICAL RESPONSE It demands action. Jesus was saying, I have compassion on these people, now observe what compassion looks like, and then he proceeds to meet their need.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that our prayers are enough, (we kind of use them as finger snaps) but compassion requires that we put feet to our prayers.

Listen to Jas 2:15-17 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food,
16 and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?
17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

What is the phrase, “depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” if not a prayer, a “snap your finger” wish?

Jesus pulled His disciples away from the crowd just to teach them this truth....may we learn or relearn it today.

I'm Duane Matz and that's Today's Living Word.