1 Kings 16-17

(July 30, 2014)

                These chapters hold a potent truth that we need to internalize.  It is that the miracles that we need in our lives (sometimes for the very temporal salvation of our lives) do not arrive until we are willing to give the Lord His portion.  Elijah blessed the widow and raised her son from the dead (and later called down fire from Heaven), but before that he had to go and live by a creek and rely on birds to feed him.  He had to exercise his faith.  So, too, the widow – she saved her life and the life of her son (twice, in fact), by giving up what she needed to keep him and her alive to the Lord.

                The Lord stands ready to give us more than we can imagine, but only if we are willing to give everything we have to Him.  It is as though we are a cup, and the promised blessings of the Lord are so plentiful that they simply spill over the sides of that cup.  But when we give everything to the Lord, we find that the process of sacrifice enlarges the capacity we have to hold the blessings of the Lord and by giving away what we have there is more room to receive more abundantly from the Lord.