Jesus Math

A little reminder that God can do crazy things when we stop being Negative Nancy’s…

I just love this little excerpt from AW Tozer on how the Lord doesn’t necessarily need us, but oh how He wants us to join up with Him in miraculous works!

Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do. Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.” John 6: 5-7

“The Lord Himself was concerned with the people’s need for food. But He made it Philip’s problem. He honored Philip by letting him participate in the solution. The thing is, He did not want just to feed them and have it over with. He wanted some blessing to flow all around as a result of it. So He picked out one of His disciples – Philip – saying to Himself, I am going to bring Philip into this. I am going to honor him by letting him become a part of this plan. He can help Me work it out, although actually I do not need him at all. So Jesus encouraged Philip to tackle the problem along with Him. He nudged Philip a little and got him into a hard spot, just to reveal to Philip his own emptiness.

Here in the New Testament was Philip the Calculator—Philip the Mathematician, Philip the Clerk. There was need for a miracle, and Philip set out to calculate the odds. Probably every Christian group has at least one person with a calculator. I have sat on boards for many years, and rarely is there a board without a Philip the Calculator among its members. When you suggest something, out comes the calculator to prove that it cannot be done….

As I say, I have been sitting on these boards for many years, and there are always two kinds of board members: those who can see the miracle and those who can only see their calculators and their strings of calculations….

The people with the calculators have seen the problem, but they have not seen God. They have figured things out, but they have not figured God in.”

AW Tozer The Spiritual/Secular Tightrope

Oh that we would count God “in” more than we actually do… we are all “calculating Philip” at times aren’t we? We make little columns in our heads and weigh out the pros and the cons, it’s just how our little brains work. Leave room though for the miraculous. Philip had no idea what Jesus was about to do, but Jesus did, and He knows what He’s doing when He asks us to participate. What an honor it is for Him to even ask us things like “hey, where do you think we can get bread for these hungry people?” It’s not a trick, or a tease, or Him poking fun at our limited abilities, it’s a loving God reaching out a hand to His child and asking “do you want to come along on a great adventure? Let’s go.”

What an encouragement this is that the God of the universe actually wants us to come along side of Him. God bless Philip and his little calculating brain. Lord, help us to look past our “just the facts ma’am” mentality and into the miraculous things You want us to be a part of!