Gtcotr/ws011024
Last
week in part 1 of our series we learned that:
· God demands we participate in our miracles.
So when we go to God with a need, we should be ready to do something. The Bible plainly says that if a person is unwilling to work, they, and their community, should accept their hunger as a reasonable result. (2 Thessalonians 3:10) It is not unreasonable for God to expect us to work with Him to meet our needs.
The widow of 2 Kings 4 is a prime example of someone who had done everything they could have and needed a miracle from God. However, the miracle God wanted her to have would demand faith and work.
· We must give God something to work with.
In September of 2023, just before the October 7th horrendous terrorists attack perpetrated by Hamas against the peaceful citizens of southern Israel, I was in Jerusalem leading a group of people from our Church on a tour of the Holy Land.
One day found us on the Temple Mount and also at the City of David. Of all the accounts in the Bible which happened at these sites, we chose to focus on one of the three miracles Jesus did in Jerusalem. Specifically the miracle of healing the blind man as recorded in John chapter 9.
Jesus was exiting the Temple and the disciples saw a blind man. They questioned Jesus as to why this happened. In the end, Jesus spit on the ground and made some mud and put it on the eyes of the blind man and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam.
In September while reading the account of this blind man I asked our group to follow me down a path. Even though there is a sidewalk there now, the path is still very winding and very steep and hard to walk. Along the way we discussed how difficult it must have been to walk that path 2000 years ago, especially if you were blind … and on top of that … someone had put wet sand in your eyes. All together it took our group the better part of 20 minutes before we found ourselves sitting beside the pool of Siloam.
Our lesson that morning concluded with the realization that Jesus required even the blind man to walk a faith walk. Jesus required this man to participate in faith. It was a long and potentially perilous walk for the blind man. He didn’t have to do it and it is a wonder he did. He didn’t know it would make a difference. He didn’t even know what he was missing. He had been blind from birth.
The only guarantee he had was instructions from a man called Jesus, whom he had never seen. Like the leper Naaman in 2 Kings 5, he would have gone back to Syria and died a leper if he had not have dipped himself in the Jordan River 7 times as the prophet required.
The blind man at the pool of Siloam received his miracle that day but it was not until he obeyed the Word of God and walked by faith and not by sight and washed in the pool of Siloam. Then the scriptures say he walked back to the Temple Mount and found Jesus to thank him.
In retrospect, that 20 minute walk for him was a very small thing, that may have looked like a very big thing in his moment. God will never ask us to do anything we cannot do, although it might take some extra effort on our part.
Still … Little is much in the hand of the Lord.
2 Kings 4 NKJV
1 ¶ A certain woman of the
wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my
husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And the
creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.”
2 So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
Tell me, what do you have in the house?
It might seem to some that a true prophet of the stature of Elisha
could have already discerned what it was that the woman had in her house. This
indicates to us two possibilities of which both are at times true.
·
First: Even true and gifted men of God do not always know
everything, even about the works and miracles they themselves are involved in.
(such as the Prophet Nathan: 2 Samuel 7)
·
Next: Often men of God, though they know, they await others to
come to the knowledge as though arriving at it by themselves. People guided to
truth who uncover it often feel more joined to it since they feel they
discovered it.
·
Note: The prophet is going to identify something personal and costly
to the widow … something in her house. Even though she has recently lost much,
still the road to her salvation demands she offer yet more of what she has.
Much like the widow of 1 Kings 17, this woman must act in faith for her
miracle.
Trusting God is often easier when you have an
abundance.
However, seldom do we need a miracle when we have abundance. God may use our
abundance to provide miracles for others.
Her
reply: “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
·
She
had evidently not gone running to the prophet when she first found herself in
trouble. It appears she used everything she had, every natural means of supply
until she ran out of options.
·
Finally
in despair, she turned to someone she trusted.
· Her answer shows she was out of ideas and that she didn’t think the little she had was of any value to anyone.
The things we so lightly esteem are often anointed by God to become our salvation.
God
chooses the simple things of this world and the things which are nothing to
bring about great things. (1 Corinthians 1:28) Little David,
from the backside of the desert, tending a few sheep, was brought from
obscurity to greatness in the hand of the Lord. (1 Samuel 16:11 & 17:28)
God has decided to place more of His honor on the unseemly parts of mankind
than on those we often esteem. (1 Corinthians 12:23)
In our humility we are exalted and in His gentleness are we made great. (1 Peter 5:6 & Psalms 18:35) It is in the weak of this world that God chose to place His greatest treasure. (2 Corinthians 12:10) These ignorant and unlearned men, earthen vessels of clay, just because they had been with Jesus were elevated to eternal recognition as their names are written on foundation stones of our new Jerusalem, the holy city ascending down from God. (Acts 4:13; 2 Corinthians 4:7; Revelation 21:14) As then, so now, the stone that the builders rejected becomes the head of the corner.
How appropriate to have only a little oil turn out to be much more than
enough.
Tell me, what do you have? Little is much in the hand of the Lord. It is often the little we are willing to offer to God that He anoints and uses. Some small amount of time; some small talent; some small offering.
No doubt what made it precious to God was because it was precious to her. It represented all she had and the prophet simply told her to trust God with all she had.
God demands we participate in our miracles. And Little is much in the hand of the Lord.
I pray we all learn to walk by faith and not by sight. God knows what He is doing and He knows exactly where you are in life. He has a miracle for you and your family. You may not have much to offer, offer it anyway. And offer it in faith!
How do we know if we have faith? We keep walking towards Siloam; we keep dipping in the Jordan River; We keep pouring out of the little jar of oil.
Keep
praying, keep reading, keep trusting, keep walking, keep giving, keep coming.
Soon you will see and be free!
