Are you ready for a downpour of God’s mercy and grace? Have you taken your cares and worries before the Lord, crying out to Him for help – and are you ready to receive it?
In this third part I want to highlight the faith and obedience of the poor widow. As noted in the previous entries, this widow in 2 Kings 4:1-7 was in a desperate situation. Her husband had recently died and she had a debt she could not pay. Not only that, but her two sons would soon be taken as slaves by the creditors unless she could come up with the cash.
So she pled her case to Elisha, the man of God, and she offered the little she had – a jar of oil – so that God might be glorified in His miraculous provision for her needs. All that was left to do was to trust and obey.
But sometimes that’s the hardest part. We can pour out our hearts to God easily enough. We can say, “Here I am, Lord, and here’s all that I have – it’s Yours! Do with me as You please.” But when it comes down to exercising our faith through obedience to the Word and will of God, how are we doing?
Elisha gave this woman some pretty strange instructions. He told her to go and borrow as many empty jars from her neighbors as she could find. “Borrow not a few!” he told her. “Then go in and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each one is filled, put it aside.”
Now it was up to her whether or not she would receive the blessing from the Lord. She could have been skeptical and said, “You know, Elisha, I just don’t see how borrowing some empty jars is going to do me any good. Don’t you have some cash you could lend me? Couldn’t you take up a love offering among your prophets or something? What about calling down some fire upon my creditor – that’ll solve my problems.” And she would have missed the miracle God was about to perform on her behalf.
If she wanted to receive God’s mercy and grace, she had to trust and obey. And she did. She trusted the man of God and followed his instructions. And when she poured the oil from the one little jar she had, the oil continued to flow until all the jars she had borrowed were filled to the brim. Her faith was rewarded by the abundant provision of God, who is rich in mercy and lavish in grace. And if there would have been more empty vessels, God would have filled those up, too.
Borrow not a few! Be careful not to limit the blessings that God is willing – more than willing – and able to pour out upon you. Had this widow acted in little faith and only borrowed a few jars, she wouldn’t have had enough to pay off her debts and keep her sons from being taken into slavery. Instead, she took God at His word and sold the oil to pay her debt with enough left over to live on.
“Truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed,” Jesus said, “you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:20).
Friend, the greatest debt anyone could ever owe is the debt that everyone born into this world owes: the debt of sin. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. It’s a debt which no amount of good deeds, Sunday School attendance awards or financial giving to the church can pay. It’s a debt which cannot be paid for you by godly parents or grandparents, husbands or wives.
But, as the old hymn goes:
Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow
Are you desperate to be saved from the wages of sin? You can be saved, and you will be saved by crying out for mercy from the Lord. Come humbly before Him today, confessing your sinfulness and turning away from it, turning in faith and obedience to Jesus Christ, who paid your debt on the cross with His own blood. Yes, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
God has an unlimited supply of grace and mercy. He is more than able to supply your every need. Come to Jesus in faith and obedience today.
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