Jesus Plus NOTHING Is Enough!

Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price. The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand.

With this definition in mind let's take a look at John 6 where Jesus feeds more than five thousand people.  To paraphrase the miracle let me start it this way:  Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and saw that a great multitude was following Him because they had seen the signs that He preformed.  They saw the sick being healed by Jesus.  So Jesus sat down with His disciples on the mountain and the Passover was drawing near.  Jesus notices this great multitude of people and turns to Philip and asks "Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?"  Of course, Jesus knew what He had planned to do. Philip, who was overwhelmed by the number of people said, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not enough to feed all of these people (Two hundred denarii was equivalent to about eight months wages).  Andrew, one of the disciples noticed there was a young boy carrying a basket with five loaves of bread and two fish, which he was quick to inform Christ about.  But the disciple was skeptical as to this limited supply of food with so many people.  So the disciples had the men sit down on the grass and the number of men alone was equal to 5000 men (this did not take into consideration the wives and children who were following as well).  Jesus took the bread and the fishes, He blessed them before the Father and directed the disciples to begin serving the people.  And ALL the people had all the bread and fish, as much as they wanted.

Following this great miracle, Jesus commanded the disciples to take baskets out into the crowd and collect the leftovers so that nothing was wasted and to their amazement, the disciples accumulated twelve baskets full of leftovers from the five loaves and two fishes.  So when the people saw the attesting miracle which Jesus preformed during that meal they said, "This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world" (John 6:1-14).

The point I want to bring your attention to is that "The supply stops only with the demand!"  As you look at this story in your Bible, the phrase of importance is in verse 11 which actually says, "...as much as they wanted (I've underlined it above in the paraphrase).

Our public market pricing is all based on this concept of "Supply and Demand" however, with Jesus Christ as our Shepard, the supply is unlimited and the appropriate equation to this story is "Jesus plus nothing is enough!"

You may not know where the money will come from to purchase your next tank of gasoline for your vehicle.  You may have to spread the peanut butter & jelly a little more thinly than normally. You may have to use less air conditioning this summer because of an economical situation, but when you call upon the Lord for your spiritual needs, "Jesus plus nothing is enough!"  This is something you learn as you walk with Christ over the years.  "Jesus plus nothing is enough!"..."Jesus plus nothing is enough!"..."Jesus plus nothing is enough!"
Today you have a need (or a demand) and Jesus Christ is the only one who can supply that need.  He can do for you the same thing He did for 5000 plus men, women and children on that mountain top that day.

Dave