Brother K.P. Yohanan encouraging us to be
conduits for Christ.
Whatever the Lord gives to you, give it
away.
You want to be blessed, bless others.
Give, it shall be given unto you.
In full measure, press down and running over.
You want forgiveness, forgive.
You want love, give love.
You want people to smile at you, smile.
This is the way our life is.
The more you give, the more you receive.
Don't hold things so tightly for yourself.
Give it away, whatever that is.
Approximately 15,000 to 20,000 hungry people
and just five loaves and two fish.
The disciples of Christ saw this as a
problem, but Jesus, well, he saw it as
an opportunity.
Welcome to the Road to Reality from Gospel
for Asia.
Today, Brother K.P. Yohanan points to our
inadequacy as well as God's sufficiency in all
things.
With God, all things are possible and the
story we're about to look at underscores that
truth.
As we look again at the feeding of
the 5,000, we'll be encouraged to trust
God at all times.
Just see how much he cares for us
and learn how to pass that care and
encouragement along to those we come in contact
with.
Let's be encouraged by Jesus.
Here's K.P. once again.
Unless you and I believe God, our Father,
is so interested in you, every detail.
Baba, if one has a problem with God,
how much more is concerned about your sari
and your trousers and your food and five
-star tattwara and all the other stuff that
you are worried about?
But you see, God stands helpless, his hands
bound up, not able to do one thing
for you.
And he weeps, saying, I wish you would
let me lose so I can care and
I can touch you, I can heal you,
I can bless you, I can reveal myself
to you.
Please untie me.
His hands are tied up.
You are saying, what are you saying?
Who did it?
You did it.
I do it.
Psalm 78, it says, they bound up the
hands of the Almighty.
He could not do anything for them.
With the choice, the freedom he gave to
you, to me, we have to make some
decision saying, Lord, I give up.
I accept, I receive what you have said
in your word and I receive it like
a child.
I don't argue, debate, question.
I simply believe the act of faith releases
the hand of God and his promises.
So we become inheritors of his promise and
walk into his promises.
That's what the scripture tells us.
We have to be careful not to separate
the sacred from the secular to the extreme
that will hurt us even in our spiritual
life.
Dichotomy is good when it comes to holiness
and sin and things like that.
We have to have a clear understanding from
right and wrong.
I agree.
But in God's dealing with us, we often
separate our Monday through Saturday as secular and
Sunday as spiritual.
The prayer meetings and worship, we make it
spiritual and the dealing with our family members
or friends, we make it secular.
But if you watch the lives of the
people of God, the way God dealt with
them, he didn't make any segregation in that.
He was very much concerned about the way
we relate to one another horizontally, the words
we use, the attitude, the responses, forgiving, receiving
forgiveness, and walking with one another.
It's very serious, the instructions and the consequence.
What is so spiritual about rice?
What is spiritual about it?
It is also spiritual when we acknowledge all
things are from him and for him.
The slaves who were born-again believers serving
ungodly masters when they were mistreated, Paul writes,
my brothers, serve your masters as unto the
Lord.
Don't work so hard when they watch you.
Your master in heaven is watching you.
Be faithful to him.
Think about that.
Do everything, whether you eat or drink, all
for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 31.
So when we make our decisions about our
life, do you consider the Lord is concerned
about it and ask him to get involved
with it?
Along with that, I want to make one
more point here.
That is, Jesus is no more walking on
earth.
He is the head of the church.
We are his body.
And the head tells the body to act,
hands, legs, eyes.
So now Jesus walked on earth.
He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Right now he wants to do his heart's
desire through his body.
That is you and I.
We are the body.
If Jesus were to walk here on earth
right now, looking at the 300 million Dalits,
having spent eight years in North India, I
can tell you places like Bihar and Madhya
Pradesh and UP, places where many of these
people, millions, live in abject poverty and total
illiteracy.
And their lives are not so wonderful.
When I was in Rajasthan for a couple
of years in Ajmer, I saw these people,
the Dalits called Tottis, going around early morning
and cleaning the toilets, open sewer with their
own hands and carrying it on their head.
And from kilometers you can sense the sting
they carry in their body.
People made in the image of the Almighty
God.
What kind of response Jesus would have to
these people?
What about the HIV AIDS victims?
We don't talk about it, but millions and
millions are dying.
Do we care?
Do we have space to pray for them?
If Jesus were here today, how will he
respond?
The five million people living in the slums
of Bombay alone and the hundred thousand children
walking around on the streets of Calcutta, not
knowing who their parents are, the Adivasis and
the tribals, the millions of precious people living
in the leper colonies.
He saw the multitude, they were hungry.
He saw the sick and the deceased and
the people that were forsaken and he had
compassion on them.
Is there any space, any room in your
heart?
You say, what am I supposed to do?
Let me ask you, do you have a
list of things you pray for?
I imagine you do.
Do you have these people on your list
to pray for them?
Are you one that is praying, Lord, show
me my role so I can do something
to serve?
We got 175 dull schools with some 7
,000 little children.
Many of these kids come to our school
totally naked, three, four, five-year-old children
coming, never wore a teacher cloth on their
body.
They need to be washed up and give
the uniform and give them books and give
them some hope.
And I began to think about it recently,
what a privilege it would be for all
of us, including my own family, to take
some of these children, saying they are going
to be my children.
I will pray for them.
I will give them finances or help whatever
I can and someday when they grow up
and know the Lord and serve God, what
a blessing I can say, wow, 50 of
those young people now living and serving God
because I had the opportunity and the privilege
the Lord gave me to do something for
them.
Jesus cares and He cares about our needs,
our problems, but at the same time He
wants us to care about others.
Thought I want to point out from this
passage is Jesus asking Philip and his disciples,
Philip, yes, Lord, we got a problem.
Yeah, I know, look at all these people.
And God asking a question to a man.
Think about it.
What are you going to do?
Well, Philip carries a calculator.
You know what a calculator is?
One, two, three, four, ten plus ten is,
so immediately takes out the calculator and says,
well, I mean, we got a very large
crowd here.
Even if we have this much money, it's
nothing.
There's no way.
It is impossible.
You're asking me what to do about it?
It says in the message, this verse goes
like this.
It was to stretch Philip's faith.
Jesus asked him how on earth they're going
to do it, and Jesus did it to
stretch Philip's faith, for he already knew what
he was going to do.
Hey, think about it.
Are you one, I should ask this to
my own heart, am I that individual who
lived by logic and reason?
I mean, Philip can go to a court
and argue his point and prove it.
He's correct.
I mean, how can you feed all these
people?
There's no way.
Impossible.
I agree.
He's right.
But Jesus now is trying to train his
disciples for three and a half years to
get them ready for the life that is
before them.
That's what he's doing with us also.
And Philip was given the privilege, the opportunity
to respond.
Something like this, Lord, you are asking me,
what's wrong with you?
I mean, I saw you doing this miracle.
This leper got healed and this man, 38
years, just walked away.
And the demon possessed people, they got well.
And I mean, you're asking me what to
do with it?
Lord, with you, you are the answer.
But that didn't agree with the logic.
The Lord lovingly prepared his disciples for the
road ahead.
And as we study this passage, he's preparing
us for works of service as well.
Before we return to K.P. O'Hannon
here on the road to reality, I'd like
to briefly tell you about K.P.'s latest
book.
As you heard K.P. speak about the
suffering children of Asia, I'm sure you could
hear his love and concern for them.
In his book, No Longer a Slumdog, K
.P. observes that hope is growing in hearts
of those dear children and lives are being
transformed.
You'll read about the next great wave of
transformation in some of the darkest corners of
the world.
Look for that online along with his series
of booklets called Journey with Jesus.
We're at winasia.org.
That's winasia.org.
Or if you're in Canada, go to gospelforasia
.ca. Well, with the second half of this
week's study, once again, here's K.P. with
a brilliant Old Testament example of trusting the
Lord.
The twelve people went to spy out the
land.
They said the truth.
Ten of them said impossible, giants, impossible.
But Joshua and Caleb saw the God of
the giants.
Faith is not against reason.
It is beyond reason.
My brothers and sisters, when we face the
onslaught of the enemy, struggles and problems and
difficulties, or tremendous challenge before us beyond our
imagination to find answers, let us not be
like Philip.
I repeat, let us not be like Philip.
Let us be childlike in our response.
Faith is the key for the God to
do the impossible through us.
Logic says it cannot be done, but faith
says no problem.
We all live by our experience from past
and present, and then we listen to others
and we say there's no way we can
handle it.
What are you praying for?
What are the struggles you are facing at
this time?
What is that one thing or two or
ten, twenty, thirty, whatever you're saying, I don't
see how I can handle it.
Well, you only know where you are.
For our brothers on the mission field, some
places it's the opposition and the problems we
face we sometimes do not know what to
do.
Maybe it's the worry and care you live
with about your future.
Maybe a bunch of people, unsaved relatives that
you've been praying and praying and nothing seems
to happen.
How can this be?
Well, the simplest answer is by faith.
You know, the people who experience the least
miracles, I sometimes think are the people who
know the Bible so much.
We are educated and finally God is not
in the picture.
Never can forget about the man who wrote
me a letter, which you may have heard
it.
I like to say it again because I
like to hear it.
He had some problems with his lungs, went
to the hospital and part of his lung
was taken out.
Now he got part of it and as
time went by he hardly can breathe anymore.
But he had the childlike heart, not so
complicated.
When he heard me on the radio, Jesus
is right there with you in your bedroom,
in the kitchen.
He's there with you in the hospital room.
He's right there.
Why don't you cry out to him?
He's able, he can forgive you and save
you and he can heal you also.
And I will quote a bunch of Bible
verses and if you believe I'm praying for
you, why don't you cry out to Jesus?
He writes, I prayed with you, I felt
so well.
He went to the hospital, they took the
x-ray, new one.
The Lord created brand new full perfect lungs
for him.
I read that and say it cannot be.
God cannot do things like that.
Because my logic don't agree with it, science
don't agree with it.
But the poor man was not brainwashed by
theologians.
He simply believed, simply believed.
My brothers and sisters, let us, let us
learn to trust God and stand on his
promises that he gave us in his word.
They saw so much yet they could not
open their hearts.
Let's move on.
Finally, Jesus takes this little fish and bread,
I mean that little boy, I tell you
what, I admire him.
How old he was, I don't know.
How, what did they do to get that
from him?
They tricked him, I think.
A little boy trying to, I mean he
didn't come and say, oh here, take it.
No, I think the disciple Andrew or Philip,
somebody must have told him a bunch of
stories and somehow they got it and gave
to Jesus.
They, the nameless little boy surrendered everything he
had.
He didn't say, what do you want to
do with this thing?
We're going to feed 5,000 people and
more.
Wow, I don't think so.
This is just enough for me.
He just gave it.
Can we do the same thing?
The Lord took the little and he blessed
it and he gave it to his disciples.
You remember that?
He gave it to his disciples and the
disciples to these people and they were fed
full stomach, leftover, tall baskets.
Can you just imagine one of the disciples
saying, you know what, man I'm so glad
there's one basket full and look at all
these thousands of people.
If I'm going to distribute this in the
end, I will have nothing left.
So I better run with it.
That's what many people do.
They began to give it out.
You know what, whatever the Lord gives to
you, give it away.
You want to be blessed, bless others.
Give, it shall be given unto you in
full measure, pressed down and running over.
You want forgiveness, forgive.
You want love, give love.
You want people to smile at you, smile.
This is the way our life is.
The more you give, the more you receive.
Don't hold things so tightly for yourself.
Give it away, whatever that is.
Before we pray, just a few applications.
One, trials, needs are often God's way of
testing us to see where we are on
the inside.
Grow in faith and trust him completely.
Two, God is deeply concerned about the suffering,
injustice and poverty.
Three, let us become agents of his concern
and trust him to meet our needs also.
Number three, we grow into spiritual maturity through
struggles.
Therefore, don't despise it.
It was to stretch Andrews and his disciples,
Phillips, everyone's faith.
Jesus did it.
Number four, spending time alone with God is
the key to being prepared to face life's
struggles.
Number five, our natural mind is the enemy
of faith.
Therefore, train your mind to think thoughts based
on the word of God.
Number six, do what you can.
Andrew did what he was able to do.
The boy did what he could do.
And the Lord will do the impossible.
Number seven, surrendering what little we have will
result in great blessings for us and others.
Therefore, surrender all to him.
Number eight, don't hold back.
Give it away and you will be blessed
hundredfold.
Number nine, when God uses us, make sure
we don't take the glory.
Walk away from the temptation, seeking for man's
honor.
They sought to make Jesus their king after
this miracle and buried there, he walked away.
He didn't want to.
Given to their words, he sought the Father's
glory in all that he did.
Good footsteps to follow in.
Let's be sure to seek the Lord's glory
in all that we do.
Nine great lessons to take with us and
apply.
Thanks for that, KP.
And friend, thank you for joining us for
The Road to Reality with KP Yochanan.
And as we've been encouraged by Jesus today,
I'm reminded of KP Yochanan's Journey with Jesus
series.
On our website, you can look through three
volumes, each containing four booklets.
Here are just a few of the booklets
that caught my eye.
When We Have Failed, What Next?
There's another one for Seasons of Discouragement called
Stay Encouraged.
And another one called The Beauty of Christ
Through Brokenness.
The booklets can be purchased individually for three
dollars, or you can save a little money
by getting a four-part set for just
ten dollars.
Look through the Journey with Jesus series online
at winasia.org.
That's winasia.org.
If you're in Canada, log on to gospelforasia
.ca. Gospel for Asia is born out of
an intense desire to reach those who've never
before heard the name of Jesus.
Next week on The Road to Reality, we'll
hear more stories from the mission field and
receive another refreshing message from KP Yochanan.
Until then, God bless.