Focus: Look at God!

Text: Ex.16:21

"They gathered it every morning…"

By God's redemptive action over two million people marched out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea on their way to the promise land. Now they are in the wilderness and have need of daily food and water. Where could they find food and water to sustain themselves for their length of stay in the desert? Imagine the amount of food and water required to taking care of that huge number of people, and also their animals.

This is where God came in. He brought them out of bondage in Egypt, and He has everything it took to see them through the desert and into the promise land. God took Israel as His personal responsibility. He promised to lead, feed and protect them. Our text says that God took it upon Himself to provide for them. He released manna from heaven for them. Every morning they found fresh manna to gather together and feed on. At no time did they run out of food. On daily basis they had sufficient food to eat and water to drink. The faithfulness of God was always new every morning for them, and His compassion never failed.

God provided the manna, and the people made the effort to gather it together.

Do you know that you serve the God of daily bread? The psalmist testifies, "Blessed be the Lord, who DAILY loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah" (Ps.68:19). The Lord Jesus Christ tells us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." As we supplicate God, He supplies us with bread and other things of paramount necessity on a daily basis.

Look at God feeding over two million people on a daily basis for the long period of forty years! Our God is incredibly capable. He gives us loads of blessings every day. His daily blessings upon our lives are beyond computation and comprehension.

Christ provided food for another crowd in a desert place, and after they were fully fed, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost" (Jh.6:12). There was surplus. God is capable of providing much more than we can consume at once.

This whole issue of God making provisions for us has the human side to it. God does the scattering of the goods while we do the gathering of them. God gives us the power to make wealth, but it is our responsibility to put that power to use. In Christ, God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. All we need do is gather them for our enjoyment. We are superabundantly blessed in Jesus Christ. God provides the ram, and Abraham makes use of it. 

God gives us the power; we put it to use. He gives us authority; we exercise it.

Let us look at a few Scriptures that speak of gathering. In the place of prayer and praise, the psalmist declares, "That thou givest them they GATHER: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good" (Ps.104:28). God's hands are full of blessings for His people, and it is only what He supplies that we are able to gather. God says to Israel, "That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest GATHER in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil" (Dt.11:14). Gather in your blessings. Bring in the daily benefits. Do your part. Apply the divine wisdom. Appropriate to yourself the provisions of grace.

God not only provides, but He also gathers. In Song of Solomon, the bride says, "My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to GATHER lilies" (Song of Sol.6:2). You are Christ's garden. Christ is free to enter His garden at any time, and gather His own lilies. Isaiah prophesies, "He shall FEED his flock like a shepherd: he shall GATHER the lambs with his arm, and CARRY them in his bosom, and shall gently LEAD those that are with young" (Isa.40:11). We read in John, "And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad" (Jh.11:52). God will regather His scattered children from across the world. No child of God shall be lost. 

Paul writes that "in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might GATHER TOGETHER in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him" (Eph.1:10). This is the ultimate plan of God. By God's doing, everything in creation is coming together again in Christ Jesus. In Revelation 14, an angel of God says, "Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe" (Rev.14:18). 

At the end of time, there will be a harvest - the final harvest of the earth by God Himself. Look at our God! What a God! He leads and feeds us. He guides and guards us. He gives us daily loads of divine benefits, and He wants us to gather together and make use of all that He provides. Paul says that the living God is the one "who giveth us richly all things to enjoy" (1Tim.6:17). Look at God!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter