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Jars of Hope
Have you ever cried out for help but not known what exactly to ask for?
So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.” 2 Kings 4:2
Did she know hope would come in a jar of oil?
Our Biblical Groundwork: 2 Kings 4:1-7
Elijah has been taken to heaven by chariot and Elisha is in his place as a prophet of God. He is running a school to train the prophets but one of them has passed away.
Somehow the prophet acquired debt and the widow could not pay restitution. By law the children would be required to work off the debt of their father. There mother was beside herself so she went to Elisha for assistance not knowing how he could assist but that she needed him to so she would not lose her sons to slavery.
Elisha asks her what she has in the house. She tells him she has nothing save one jar of oil. Good enough but she will need more to pay off the debt. He instructs her to go borrow more jars, bring them into the house and close the door.
She closes the door and fills all of the borrowed jars using her small jar of oil. When she sees they are all full she tells her sons to get more but there is no more, so the miracle ceases. She tells Elisha it is done and he gives her more instruction.
Biblical Life Lesson: A Miracle is never without instruction.
This story reminds of the times Jesus healed someone or performed a miracle in their sight. None of it was done without instruction regarding either how to get it or how to keep it.
When you first cry out to Jesus in need you really don’t know what you need because you need everything. You feel lost and alone. You need Him, yourself and others. It is all far away.
He will ask you what you have and show Him your tiny jar of oil. But that jar of oil is exactly what He has in mind for you but bigger. There is hope in that jar of oil.
The has been a biblical life lesson to live life to.
Join me in The Bible Gals community tomorrow at 2pm EST for the Biblical Power Tools to keep offering up that little jar of oil to keep pouring out hope for the future.
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A Pill isn’t a Miracle it’s a Pill!
The Pill
Leola Lurned is comfortably lounging on her have-to-have-it sofa gazing out the window into nothing but feeling fully aware nothing is where she is right now and nobody is who she is. A squirrel catches her eye jumping from branch to branch with an agility and freedom one only can wish for. A perfectly timed commotion is exploding on Television beckoning her attention. Loud chaotic music with a flashy background announces a dangerously handsome man onto the screen. He is lovingly unfolding a miracle happening in the lives of millions of women, he summons Leola to want it. A ‘miracle’ contained in a little white pill, taken three times a day, will give her energy like never before. She will climb to the mountain top and back down again without even breaking a sweat. Momentarily encouraged by this she looks down at the well-rounded stomach she has been developing for months and says, “Now that WOULD really be a miracle from God!” She places her order without another thought. Leola needs that pill to change her life!
She waits weeks expectantly for the miracle pills to arrive. She dreams about the mountain she will climb and how wonderful it will be to have the freedom she so desires. Finally, the miracles arrives. She is giddy at the prospect of beginning so she downs the first one as soon as the foil’s off the bottle. Days go by, following every direction to the letter, without improvement. She quotes in her mind the words of all the pill popping guru’s “It takes 30 days for them to work!” Those days are followed by weeks and then months with simply no change. She becomes withdrawn and anxious. Her resentment of being deceived again is leading her into a deeper depression than ever before. Her darkened bedroom is her comfort right now.
Have we become so complacent about miracles we would honestly believe a life changing miracle from God would come in pill form? The ‘Miracle Pill’ is designed by the devil to make you think it has the power to heal but in fact it is a placebo! There is NO shortcut to a mind well healed only the painful, long narrow road. We want to believe the miracle pill can take us down this road in a chauffeur driven Cadillac but it is the miracle of Scripture taking us down this road in a rusty old Pinto, low in gas and leaking oil (2 Timothy 3:16).
The ‘miracle pill’ is a pseudonym for “the easy way out!” Our life skills are NEVER developed easily yet we keep expecting they will. Life itself is not easy, let alone the skills to live a righteous life. We will have weight problems, muscle problems, people problems, illness, anxiety and a multitude of other issues. Life causes mind altering catastrophes resulting in mind altering consequences resulting in a mind altering experience. Pills cannot take this fact away. Our life skills will not improve until we do the work to improve them. There is no miracle pill just the power of Scripture!
Wide is the road leading to destruction but narrow is the road leading to life! (Matthew 7:13-14) If you consider all the books in the world today how many of them will lead you to a miraculous healing like the Scriptures contained in the Holy Bible! We can read all the self-help books and listen to all the guru’s but we will still not find healing as thorough as the healing from God through His Words. We can talk all day about the benefits of reading Scripture, but until you take the time to read them, the benefits will escape you. Stop asking humans questions and start asking God the questions! Stop guessing what God wants from you and start desiring the truth from God. The narrow road is narrow because it takes guts to walk it, day in and day out, but the reward is freedom. Isn’t freedom what we are truly looking for? Freedom from food, freedom from drugs, freedom from pain, freedom from emotional pain, freedom from anxiety or depression. Are we not willing to work for freedom? If you were kidnapped and locked in a small room would you not do everything you can to get free? You would think about it constantly and act on those thoughts every chance you had. Well, my lovely, you have been kidnapped by the devil and locked in that room, but you have given up trying to get out! You shake the door knob once a week without escape. You return to your comfortable seat in the corner with your knees curled up to your chest for another week brooding about the darkness until you can shake the doorknob again next week!
The Escape
In Leola’s deepest depressed state she hears a voice as clear as day, “Put your trust in Me!” Her mind went straight to the Bible on the table in her living room. She slowly extracts herself from her comfortable bed with legs weak from inactivity to reach for Him! Sermons have taught her how important Scripture is to a Christian but she had no evidence of it working in her life. Her Bible has become a piece of furniture to dust. Her walk with God had been relegated to a weekly sermon having little effect on her. She sat on her have-to-have-it sofa and let gravity open the Bible. Gravity reading the Bible has been her typical ten minutes of Bible reading in the past, why change now. Psalm 119 opened and she began reading the power given to people by the Words of God. The miracle of Scripture appeared to her on that very page. More than murdering the man with the pills she wanted to be free from the devils oppressive words to her. She wanted out of the locked room and she knew it was going to take more than a pill. Her hard won realization ‘a pill is not a miracle it’s a pill’ began her journey toward freedom. Shaking the doorknob once a week was not going to be enough, she needs to shake it every day no matter how hard it gets because freedom is at the end of the long narrow road! Her vow to herself to shake the knob every day for the rest of her life ultimately led her to encounter the miracle of those Words every single one of those days!
The miracles from God, to assure our freedom, cannot be found in a pill. Man makes pills, God makes miracles using His Words!
