Mensa Otabil - Overflowing Harvest (10/27/2025)
Thank you. Welcome to day number 36 of our 40 days of power. We’re getting very close; we are almost there. The Lord is our helper, the Lord is our strength, the Lord is our shield. So we go back to our theme of gathering as we look at how to really conserve what God has given to us, whether it is souls He has given to us or opportunities He’s given to us. Our substance is given to us; we have to keep what He gives to us.
Somewhere, John chapter 6, verse 13: «Therefore they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.» This is after the multiplication of the bread and the fish, and now the people have gathered together the pieces. So what do you do when you gather something together? The passage says that they gathered them and filled baskets. They had an overflow of a miracle, an overflow of supply. They left it on the ground. Jesus has gathered them, and He puts them into containers.
It’s a very instructive way as to how we harness the opportunities that God has given to us. If you’re looking at it spiritually, it means when a person comes and gives their life to Christ, they are like a harvest; they are like fragments that have been put together. What do we do with them? We put them into a church, into a basket, into a place. Living in the church, they have to belong to a small group and belong to a unit in the church where they can fellowship with other people. That’s what Jesus is teaching us. You don’t just gather the fragments and keep them individually where they are, but you gather them and create containers for them, for their spiritual life.
It is going to church. You know, I know many of you feel that you can live your Christian life by yourself. You know, I can worship God in my heart, in my spirit, and so on and so forth. Now that is all true; the Bible says that God lives in our hearts. But the same Bible says that although God lives in our hearts individually, we must join other believers in a Christian community we call the church. You have to be in a basket.
It’s the same way when God blesses you financially. What do you do? Do you just go and spend the money? No, you have to find a way of conserving what God has given to you. You can call it savings and investments. So the whole idea of receiving abundance from God, collecting what God has given to you, and harnessing the opportunities God has given to you must lead to a second responsibility: finding a way to put what God has given to us in a container, in a structure, that will not make it be lost again.
So for the bread, it was baskets; for the souls, it is a church; for your money, it may be savings. You can apply this to other areas of your life. The question is, where are you holding the things that God has given to you? Sometimes all you need to do is to write it down. God gives you an idea; you have thousands of ideas per minute-write it down. That’s your basket; that’s how you keep the idea so that it’s not wasted. Because if you don’t write it down, you may lose it.
So think about all the things that God has given to you, all the blessings He gives to you, all the resources He’s made available to you, and ask yourself, which baskets am I putting all these blessings in so that I don’t become wasteful and lose the opportunities I have? May the Lord grant us the wisdom to find the right containers for the things that He has blessed us with so generously.
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, You are the God of more than enough. I receive Your overflowing harvest into new areas of my life. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Well, I’ll catch you again tomorrow. I’m Pastor Mensa Otabil. Shalom, peace, and life to you.