learning from the Lord to take God as the source of blessing and be one with Him

The Lord Jesus as a Man of Prayer set us a pattern for us to follow, and He told us to learn from Him, for He is meek and lowly in heart, and we will find rest for our souls (Matt. 11:29). One situation in which the Lord prayed was the feeding of the 5000 in Matt. 14.

Most people see the outward miracle of the Lord multiplying the five loaves and two fish so that these would feed such a large crowd and even have some leftovers. But we need to receive revelation from the Lord to see the deeper lessons which come from the way the Lord performed this miracle. He looked up to the heavens, He took the Father as the source, and He was one with the Father. What a pattern the Lord is to us!

Looking up to heaven – the Father is the source

To see the miracle of feeding the 5000 people with only 5 loaves and 2 fish is easy, and this is what most people did and were amazed. But for us to know the deep and great lessons of life that we have to learn from the Performer of this great miracle requires revelation. We need to learn these lessons from the Lord Jesus so that we would enter into the God-man living that He had.

When the Lord was given the five loaves and two fish, He blessed them – He looked up to heaven. What does it mean to look up to heaven when you bless / as you bless? The Father, the Sending One, is in the heavens, and He is the source!

The Lord Jesus’ looking up to heaven was His acknowledging that the source was the Father – the source of blessing was not Himself as the Sent One but the Father as the Sending One. This is a great lesson for us all to learn – we need to see past the miracle performed by the Lord and learn from the principle of the Lord’s blessing the bread and the fish.

What the Lord did is a pattern to us. We are not the Sender, but the sent ones, and we need to seek the blessing from the Sender. Regardless how much we think we can do, how much we know, or how much we have a burden to do something, we need to realize that we still need the blessing from the source – our Sender – that we can pass on to the benefitted ones.

“No blessing is of us. Regardless of how much we can do or how much we know what to do, we must realize that we need the Sender’s blessing upon our doing by trusting in Him, not in ourselves. Even when we take our meals, we should learn of the Lord to look up to the Father as the source. When we bless our food, we should bless it by looking up to the source of blessing.” (Witness Lee, the God-man Living)

The Son was One with the Father

The fact that the Lord Jesus looked up to the heavens – when all eyes were set on Him to see what will He do with this small amount of food – indicates that the Lord was one with the Father and He trusted in the Father (John 10:30). Everything the Lord did was not out of Himself or in Himself but in oneness with the Father.

Whenever we speak for the Lord or we do something for the Lord, we need to put our trust in Him and be one with Him. What we know or what we can do means absolutely nothing – what matters is being one with the Lord in what we are doing. He is the source and He is the One who blesses our work, our doing.

The blessing upon what we are doing for the Lord comes not because we are skillful or because we are good organizers/speakers. No, the blessing comes only by our being one with the Lord and trusting in Him. We are one with the Lord when before we do anything we stop and pray.

When we take time to pray and breathe the Lord in, when we set aside precious time even in front of the urgent need, we trust not in ourselves but in the Lord and we become one with Him. We should never go to minister the word or do something for the Lord by remaining in ourselves or trusting in what we can do. Let’s look up to the heavens and trust in the Lord, seeking to be One with Him!

Learning from the Lord – the lessons of life

We need to learn not to pay attention to the outward things (like the miracle itself) but to the deeper lessons of life that the Lord as the God-man wants to teach us. Even though the Bible doesn’t say what the Lord prayed when He looked up to the heavens and blessed the five loaves and two fish, we know that He prayed. This is an important principle of prayer.

We need to learn from the Lord to not be quick in responding to the need but to stop and look to Him, recognize Him as the source of the blessing, and seeking to be one with Him. The blessing is in our oneness with the Lord. No matter how much we can do or how much we know, we need to stop, deny ourselves, and turn to the Lord to be one with Him and seek His blessing in prayer.

Lord Jesus, thank You for setting up such a pattern before us. We want to learn from You, dear Lord, to stop and look up to heaven. You are the source of blessing. We need Your blessing, Lord, on what You want us to do. We just trust in You and we want to be one with You. We treasure our organic union with You and we want to do nothing apart from You, so that You may pour out Your blessing!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from brother Witness Lee’s speaking in, The God-man Living (pages 123-124), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 5.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # “Consider Him,” let Christ thy pattern be, / And know that He hath apprehended thee
  # Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou;
  # Once it was my working, / His it hence shall be; / Once I tried to use Him, / Now He uses me;
• Picture source: looking up to heaven.