The Jar of meal Not drying up and the oil not failing away…
My sister and I had been going through an extended period of learning to trust in God for everything and we relied heavily on the principle of the 2 fish and the 5 loaves. We found ourselves daily praying for the multiplication miracle and when it didn’t seem like it was enough, we would turn to the scriptures of Elijah asking the widow to take the last bit of oil that she had left and make a cake for him and he blessed her with a jar that kept flowing with oil all through a famine.
Now while we thought we had this concept mastered, God showed us this morning how easily it was to forget. For approximately 6 months, God had blessed us with extra work, which in turn gave us extra income. We celebrated God’s goodness and felt like we were finally relieved from the pressure of having to budget for every single solitary thing. What we didn’t realize was while this was a true blessing..one which we are eternally grateful for…we needed to make sure that we didn’t forget what we had learned.
The bible says God is our source!! Not the paycheck!!! Every check that came in, we would thank God over and over again…but the one thing we stopped doing was to ask God to bless the monies and multiply them. Some where along the way, it seemed like we didn’t need to do that because it was happening anyway. As the extra money began to filter in, we stopped paying attention to the extra oil that was flowing and just relied on the checks that were coming in. We would calculate how much was coming in and what we could do with everything. Our focus switched from God being the source to the jobs and what they were providing. We began to live from paycheck to paycheck and would pretty much have the whole thing spent before it even came in. This was the life and we were not going to go back to where we were before….it was tough having to go before God on a daily basis just to meet basic needs.
What we fail to realize is that when things are hard, or what we consider bad, we are poised for a miracle. In the years prior to this, when we both weren’t working, we saw a side of God that we had never seen before. We saw favor that we didn’t even think existed. I mean that scripture that says His favor is far better than riches or gold…was proven time and time again. How far we came from that!!!
In the last month, we got all kinds of extra money that we weren’t expecting…talk about praising God and doing cartwheels. Lo and Behold!!! The extra money came in and so did a whole bunch of unforseen circumstances…needless to say, we ended up with less money than we normally had. We find ourselves in a position that we hadn’t experienced in years…we began to try to figure out how we would just meet daily expenses. We cut back, we did all kinds of things that we thought would better the situation to no avail….hence why I find myself sitting here writing this now….
God showed us this morning that for the first time in I don’t know how long, I came before Him asking Him for the 2 fish and 5 loaves miracle and for the miracle of the widow with the jar of oil that didn’t dry up.
God in His mercy….The Daddy God that He is…spoke to us and said “Yes, but the first part of that story is a requirement…you have to make the cake for ME first, with the last bit of oil that u have and then and then watch and see ME multiply it. Do not ever forget, no matter how big or small that income is to lift it to me first….consecrate it….bless it…submit it to me and I will do the rest”!!
I was so grateful to Him for His mercy and so disgusted with myself that I forgot those important lessons and that He had to remind me and show me something He had taught me over and over again before. He revealed that while the world will tell you that security is defined by how much money you have in the bank, that He (His Kingdom Principles) say, security is defined by who your Daddy is…money is great…there is nothing wrong with it….what is wrong is if you have replaced God with money and that your the focus of who your source is has changed from Him to the jobs.
Don’t misplace your security for anything…do not become complacent just because your situation has turned for the better…everything on this earth is temporary…He is the only permanent. Always, always remember to serve Him first in all that you have…and He will take care of the rest.
Scripture: 1 Kings 17:9-16 The Message (MSG)
