Tuesday September 20, 2022

Scripture Passage: 1 Kings 17: ¹³ Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴ For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”

Life Lesson: The principle of the tithe is to give to God the first fruits of what we have in faith believing that God will provide the remainder for the faithful. 

– Elijah said to the woman, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.” 

– Elijah prefaced what he was about to tell the woman with, “Don’t be afraid”.  If there is one thing that can cause fear to well up within us, it is the worry that we will not have enough.  God knows our weakness and so God tells us, “Do not be afraid”. 

– The instruction for the widow, a widow being someone who is already at a great disadvantage due to her situation, was to first of all, before making anything for herself or her son, make something for Elijah and bring it to him.  At this point many would reason they should first make something for themselves and for their family and whatever might be left over could then be given in faith to God. 

– But no, firstly she was to make from out of her measly rations food that would be devoted to God.  How many of us use what we have to first pay our credit cards, our monthly bills, our entertainment bills, our taxes and whatever else comes along, and then if we have anything left over, we might give some of that as a tithe to God? 

– We rationalize why this must be, yet what if the widow had done the same as we often times do?  Would her story have been as awesome and as miraculous?  We forget that our limited resources or even the lack thereof is the fertile soil in which God plants the seeds of His miraculous provisions! 

– Church!  I have lived this truth!  I have watched the Lord provide in ways that have absolutely astounded me as well as those whom I have shared my story with!  You say, “But there’s nothing left!”  Give to God first and then trust God to provide the rest!  Abel brought as an offering to God, “fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock”, Gen. 4:4 and we are told, “The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering”.  Why is it important to give God the first fruits?  Because doing so is an act of faith that God will provide the other lambs yet to be born and the other portions of the harvest yet to be brought in!  When we give to God first, we are saying, “Lord you have given this to me and now I give it back to you without knowing what I will yet receive from you.”  Such giving can only be by faith!