How Much Have You Got?

‘““How many loaves have ye?’ was our

* Lord’s question to his disciples as he was conq

fronted by a hungry multitude on the far shore of Gennesareth. He might have brought down a shower of manna from the heavens or called

up a miraculous growth of laden fruit-trees from

the earth. But he never displayed a wanton superfluity of power; to make the utmost of what they had was a lesson he often taught to his followers. The disciples reply to him that they have only seven loaves and a few little fishes. He immediately seats the crowd and begins to distribute the scanty supply, which wonderfully increases in his hands, and again increases still more in the hands of the distributers, until the whole four thousand are satisfied. Here was a miracle of creative power, for at the end of the feast there are seven rope-hampers filled with the yet untasted food.

An admirable lesson does this deed of mercy ‘teach to every new convert at the very start. How much have you got already? Then, with the Spirit’s help, strive to make it more. ‘This is the lesson for you to learn and to put into prompt practice. You have discovered a new and fresh truth in some texts of God’s Book. Let this slight taste of the sweetness and meatiness of the Bible stimulate you to wider and deeper study. A Bible-diet strengthens for Bible-duty. To a certain degree you have been convicted: of your own sinfulness, and have exercised some degree of penitence. Probe deeper yet; pray for more thorough self-knowledge, and lop off unsparingly every sin that doth easily beset or entrap you. It is a shocking mistake for young converts to imagine that they have done up their repentance once for all. Friend, those two men had got many stages on their journey who gave utterance to the fifty-first Psalm and the seventh chapter to the Romans. Have you opened your lips in a prayer-meeting or to an unconverted friend, or laid hold of some effort to do good?

HOW MUCH HAVE YOU GOT? Dy

Then don’t be discouraged by your poor success; push on, and find that there is downright luxury in shaming down self and trying to serve Christ. Your faith may yet be a mere sprout or bulb; but just as nature is busy in evolving into growth the roots and seeds and bulbs she has (not in trying to create new ones), so be thou busy in exercising the faith thou hast and asking Jesus to enlarge it. Observe that Christ said to his disciples, ‘‘ Bring the loaves hither to me.’’ So you must take all your faculties, all your gifts, all your endeavors — yes, and all your poor insufficiencies — right to your Master.. Having a capital of grace to start with, determine to increase it. If one had asked young John Jacob Astor, the German emigrant, ‘‘ How much have you got?’ he would have replied, “‘Nothing but my brains and my hands.’”’ A little later he might have said, ‘‘I have laid up one thousand dollars.’’ But out of the seven loaves and few fishes of his scanty youth grew the magnificent possessions of real estate that made him the richest man of his day in America.

You have got to become ‘‘rich towards God”’ by the same simple principle of economically using the gifts which the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon you. Every answered prayer must increase your faith to pray. Every slip you make, every tumble through carelessness or self-confidence, should teach you to walk more circumspectly. All the satisfaction you feel in being a young beginner for Christ should fire you to become a larger, deeper, wiser, holier Christian. A rock has been smitten in your heart by the hand of Christ, and it has begun to give out streams. Remember that he who smote the rock that the waters gushed out can give you bread also for your whole life-journey. I beg you do not be satisfied with a dwarfish piety. Some converts never grow an inch; they are planted in the church and then stunted for life. Their seven loaves get stale and dry and their few little fishes shrivel up; if they had been distributed in God’s service they would have multiplied. Diffusion brings increase. The more you give, the fuller-handed you are. If Andrew or Peter had slipped off out of the crowd with a piece of barley-loaf and said, ‘‘I will make sure of this for myself,’ they would have had only that morsel, and when it was gone there were nothing for anybody else. ‘There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; there is that withholdeth, and it tends to penury. I wish I had the space to write out here the history of a certain gold coin which a poor, hard-toiling young girl gave to the Lord; it would be a beautiful illustration of the multiplication of one loaf into a basketful of blessings. Sow plentifully if you want a harvest. You are serving a generous Master. The harder you work, the better pay; the more you do for Jesus, the more you will love him.

I verily believe that the richest joys of heaven will be the simple ex/argement of what-we are on earth. The few original loaves will be multiplied. The joys of household love will be perpetuated and purified. The thirst for divine knowledge will be infinitely increased and satisfied. Whatever we did for Jesus here will be our ‘‘treasure in heaven’’ when we get there. Death is not the end of serving Christ; it is only the transfer to a higher and wider realm in which they all ‘‘serve him day and night in his temple, and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them.’’ If we have desires after holiness here, we shall there attain unto the spotless robe and to the perfect likeness of our Lord. The faint glimpses of Jesus here, as ‘‘through a glass darkly,’’ will then become the enrapturing sight of the King in his beauty. All this exceeding weight of glory will only be the natural outcome and enlargement of what began here when we began with Christ, and he in us. Then, young friend, how many loaves have you to start with? See to it that they are all brought to your Master, and by the multiplication-table of grace you will bless others around you and have several full hampers for heaven.

GIRDING THE LOINS.