Desperation Leadership Academy

Luke 9:12-13
12 Now the day was ending, and the twelve came and said to Him, “Send the crowd away, that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside and find lodging and get something to eat; for here we are in a desolate place.” 13 But He said to them, “You give them something to eat!” And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy food for all these people.”


There is an extremely important lesson that Jesus taught His disciples when He fed the five thousand with just five loaves and two fish. We see the importance of the lesson in the fact that this event is recorded in every one of the gospels, which means it is emphasized four-fold.

We see in Luke 9:12-13 (NIV) that Jesus and His disciples were with a big group of people that had come out to be with Jesus. The day was coming to a close and so the disciples said to Jesus, "Send the crowd away that they may… get something to eat.” The lesson that Jesus was attempting to teach His disciples is found in His response, Jesus said, "You give them something to eat."

In order to see what Jesus was doing here we first have to understand that in the previous weeks Jesus had just sent out the disciples and “He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:1 NIV). So the disciples went out, preaching and doing miracles in the name of Jesus. After their going out, “the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done” (Luke 9:10 NIV). So here we see the disciples just returned from preaching, healing the sick, and doing miracles in the name of Jesus and they come up to this problem: the people are hungry and there isn’t enough food for everyone.

Jesus tells His disciples, “You give them something to eat.” Why did He say that? Why did Jesus address His disciples when He already knew that He Himself would end up multiplying the loaves and the fish? The reason is because Jesus wanted to see if His disciples were beginning to think with a kingdom mindset. He just sent them out under the anointing to do miracles and now will they let this need for food stop the ministry of the Lord? Look at how the disciples respond, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fish — unless we go and buy food for all this crowd" (Luke 9:13 NIV). The disciples were still thinking like mere men without the anointing and power of God. Their answer to the problem was stated from a worldly mindset, in the world the way we eat is by “buying” food.

Jesus wants our minds and our thinking to be transformed, where we will look at situations and circumstances, not with limited thinking, but with a kingdom mindset in which we know that nothing is impossible with God. The kingdom-mind is what enables us to demonstrate the power! A kingdom-minded person is able to demonstrate and illustrate the will of God in all circumstances. We will know the kingdom of God has transformed our thinking when the miraculous becomes routine.

Jesus is saying to you today, “You give them something to eat,” how will you respond?

Tyrel Koenes
DLA Director
WWW.DESPERATIONLEADERSHIP.COM