Nothing is Lost

This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me I should lose nothing...
John 6:39

The day before Jesus made the above statement was the day he fed 5,000 men along with all of their families. (see John 6:1-14) It's a fairly well known story and not the only time that Jesus performed this type of miracle along with his disciple team. (see Mark 8:1-10)

The gist of the story was that crowds came out of the city and surrounding area to listen, see, and experience the power of God through Jesus. His fame was rapidly spreading and people wanted to be near him. Unlike today, there were no off-highway, fast-food services for people to stock up on meals so they were out there lacking necessities.

Jesus saw them. Jesus had compassion on them. He asked if anyone had food and found that a boy had a lunch that could be shared... with 5,000+ people. Jesus got the disciples to organize the crowd into groups of 50, took the boy's lunch, thanked him and thanked God for it and then started handing it out via his team. The crowd ate until they were full! A guess-timation would be that 8-10,000 adults plus another few 1,000 children would have been there and been fed. Amazing!!!

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"So, when they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost." (vs. 12)

Stop!

When I was reading this today, this verse literally stopped me! I had to ask God what He was wanting me to see. I've read this story so many times but not hung my hat on this particular verse before. What was God wanting me to realize?

The word for 'lost' in the greek is 'apollymi'. It is also used in several other verses in the New Testament meaning destroyed, perish and wasted.

...nothing is lost.

As I pondered, I saw a park being cleaned -- not unlike what the church in Brantford did after Canada Day at Lions Park. I thought, Jesus is exhibiting good stewardship, honour of the land that was probably left a mess by the crowd. But then I thought, the birds could have cleaned this one up.

Hmmmm... Then I thought, this is yet another visual for the crowd and his disciples showing God's power and generosity. This was not a new idea for me though. So, I kept pondering... I still could not articulate what was in my spirit. I continued to read on in John 6 and that's when I saw it! Look again at verse 39:

This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me I should lose nothing...
John 6:39

When God does something, everything about it is sacred. Nothing is lost. Nothing is wasted. Everything given by Him is intentional with full potential to be effective, revealing Jesus and the way to everlasting life. Nothing is meant to be lost!

Everything done in obedience to the Holy Spirit of God, whether in public or private or private or private (yes, I know I repeated myself) will not be lost. Every moment, act of faith, dollar spent, deed done, seed planted, prayer cried, neighbour served, will not be wasted for this is the will of our Father.

Even the unused fragments picked up off the ground were a testimony that indeed the crowd was miraculously fed to the max. We don't know what Jesus did with the leftovers, but I'm sure they weren't wasted!