Feast Day 5 of 7 | Fifth Sunday of Lent
“Then He took the seven loaves and the fish, and when He had given thanks, He broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people.” Matthew 15:36
Today we recall the seven loaves that Jesus used to feed four thousand people. What a feast! Or was it? Is it possible to feast wrongly?
Jeremy Taylor offers keen insight here. “Do not seek for deliciousness and sensible consolations in the actions of religion, but only regard the duty and the conscience of it; for although in the beginning of religion most frequently, and at some other times irregularly, God complies with our infirmity, and encourages our duty with little overflowings of spiritual joy, and sensible pleasure, and delicacies in prayer, so as we seem to feel some little beam of heaven, and great refreshments from the spirit of consolation, yet this is not always safe for us to have, neither safe for us to expect and look for; and when we do, it is apt to make us cool in our inquires and waitings upon Christ when we want them: it is a running after Him, not for the miracles but for the loaves; not for the wonderful things of God, and the desires of pleasing Him, but for the pleasures of pleasing ourselves.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) in The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (Grand Rapids: CCEL) p. 273.
Many people come to Jesus for what they think they can get. That would be the wrong kind of feasting. Don’t let that be you.
Jesus, I want more than loaves. I want to learn to please You. Amen.
Celebrate today not what you get from Jesus, but for the priceless gift of a having relationship with Jesus. Write a prayer of thanksgiving.