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⁸Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ⁹“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”                           John 6:8-9

Do you ever look at where other people are at life, and feel like where you are is insignificant? Or to get where they have gotten in life would be impossible? I promise you they didn’t just arrive at that place. Everybody who is doing something great had to start with something small, with what they had.

God will take what little we do have and make it much

The reality is, we more to offer than we may think. When we offer what we have (our gifts, our talents, our money, our service) with everything we got, God will take what little we do have and make it much.

Jesus took the boys 5 loaves and two fish and used it to feed 5,000 men plus thousands of women and children.

What we may consider insignificant, is significant to God. He said if you’ll be faithful in little, He’ll make you faithful over much.

So wherever you are in life, no matter how little you may think you have to offer, give everything you do have. Give God your best and watch what He does with it.

In time – being faithful with what seems little now, in retrospect, will just be a small step into the bigger things God has planned for you.But God can’t bring you into more, until you’ve valued and proved yourself with the little you have now.

Zachariah 4:10 says, “Don’t despise the day of small beginnings.”

What is before you that you could give to God that you deem insignificant, but could be used to bring glory to God? That could reach people? Don’t miss out on opportunities to minister to people just because you don’t think you have anything to offer – because God will take your little, and make it do much.

⁴ Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, “Look at us!” ⁵ The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. ⁶ But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”                                      -Acts 3:4-6

It’s amazing to me how many people want help in their lives, but when you go to help them, they say, “I want you to help, but you’re not going to like…uh… bring God into this are you?”

I love this story in Acts about a lame man on the street. He was constantly in need of help. Everyday he would sit outside the temple begging. He sees Peter and John and expects them to help. He expected them to give him money. Instead, Peter says listen, I’m going to give you the only thing I have that can actually help you. What was it? Jesus.

Giving this man money wouldn’t have helped him at all. He would have used it and been back at the temple begging for money again the very next day. Peter and John refused to give him something that would, in the end, leave him the same. Instead, they gave Him Jesus, and the man was healed and his life was never the same again.

The only thing we can give others in need that will actually help them is God.

In most cases, I’ve found that most people that don’t want you to bring God into the equation, don’t really want to change their lives. They want their circumstances to change while they continue to live the lifestyle they are living which is impossible.

The greatest thing we can do for anyone is point them to an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Do that, and their lives will never be the same.

¹⁰ Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.                                                                                                       Galatians 1:10

It’s hard to go through life not wanting people to like you, to be impressed by you, or even wanting others to envy you. But in reality, not that many people are thinking about you as much as you think they are anyway. My friend Zack Blair taught me this truth when I was asking him his opinion about what I thought others thought about a decision I was making and he said, “Bubba, people don’t wake up every morning thinking about you.” Ouch! Haha! But it’s true!

I’ve heard it said that we spend the majority of our lives trying to impress people we don’t even like and in this case, that don’t even really think about us as much as we think they do.

I was thinking along these lines and the question came up, “What if I lived and died, and nobody remembered me?” Because in reality – regardless of what I do in life, 50 years after I die, nobody is going to remember me.

My conclusion: What I do in life will matter in eternity. Jesus said to Peter that he should have one focus in life if he loved Him: “Feed His Sheep.“  I believe that is God’s call on all of our lives – to point people to Him. That’s it. If that becomes our focus in life – lifting people and pointing them to God -> we’ll be free from wanting to please and impress people and our focus will turn to pleasing God.

“What we do in life, echoes in eternity”

And while people here won’t remember me, there will be people in Heaven as a result of what I did while I was here. They will come up to me and you in Heaven and say, “Thank you for pointing me to Jesus, I’m here because of you.” I’d rather have 1 person tell me that I made a difference in their lives for eternity than 10,000 remember my name in 5 years.

Application? Lift people and point them to Him. Stop caring what people think of you. God will remember what you did for His Kingdom, and so will the people that are in Heaven because of your life – that is all that matters so do what God has called you to do and at the end of your life you’ll be able to say along with the apostle Paul - I’ve fought the good fight and finished my race and to the people I’ve touched, it’ll have made all the difference.