Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38 NKJV)
I felt God convicting me to help a family with a special needs child, but He directed me to give from my treasured vacation funds. Back in the day, I loved traveling, shopping, and enjoying fresh seafood on our annual trip to Nags Head, North Carolina. In obedience to God’s promptings, I gave, and I never missed the money when we took that trip.
God wants us to give in a sacrificial way. If you stick to a budget like I do, you have set your tithe amount in your budget for each month. Sacrificial giving has to come from another source where you don’t normally give. That’s what makes it a sacrifice.
God directed Elijah to go to Zarephath where He had commanded a widow to provide for Elijah. Really, God? A destitute, Gentile widow will provide for a prophet of God? Unlike me, Elijah asked no questions, and he found a widow ready to prepare her last meal for her and her son before they died from starvation due to the famine.
Elijah told the widow to fix him a small cake first, and then God would never allow her bin of flour or jar of oil to run dry. He asked this woman to trust him and trust God, who she didn’t have a personal relationship with.
She complied with Elijah’s request. Can you imagine the thoughts going through her mind as she relinquished her last bit of food to this strange man?
Had God prepared her heart? Did she hope that Elijah had spoken the truth? We don’t know, but we do know the widow, her son, and Elijah ate for a long time from God’s miraculous provision.
Fast-forward to the New Testament, and we find Jesus giving us the same principle. Today’s verse reminds me of a bag of potato chips. Half air and half chips when it settles down. But God doesn’t give that way. When we give to someone, God returns the blessing in an amount that runs over. He gives us an overflow.
Do you have a need today? Expect God to meet your need. Then take a step of faith. Bless someone with a sacrificial gift. Then wait for your cup to run over.
Heavenly Father, You are my provider, and You know my needs. Help me step out in faith to give someone else what I need, not because I expect a dividend from You, but because I trust You and I want to experience Your miracles. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
DIG DEEPER
Read 1 Kings 17:8-16.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+kings+17%3A8-16&version=NKJV
HIKING THE TRAIL
Ask God to show you someone with a need. Then meet that person’s need.
RELATED RESOURCE
Have you met my guide dog, Iva, either in person or through my special devotions which I appropriately call Guide Dog Tales? God has taught me numerous lessons through Iva. I am sharing them with you in my Guide Dog Tales series, PLUS a free prayer cloth with paw prints to serve as a book mark when you order the bundle here before January 20, 2022.
Originally posted on January 17, 2022 @ 3:00 am
Yes, I too wonder what the widow was thinking. I know what would have gone through my mind because there was a time I had walked away from God, therefore, had no relationship. If I were her (being a gentile) I think I would have just not cared. I was going to die of starvation anyway so what would one more meal mean to me? So let the stranger eat the last of my food and let him be on his way probably to keep living as he seeks his next meal at his next stop. I know if it were me, I would have scoffed and laughed at his talk about God providing. As an unbeliever those words only brought up anger and bitterness in my heart back then. So Ya I do wonder what a gentile widow who was starving to death would have been thinking about the request made of her by Ilijah.
I agree and then imagine what she thought when the food never ran out.