1 Kings 17:10-11 Grace of God!

 “So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.” And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭17‬:‭10‬-‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

a. Indeed a widow was there gathering sticks: This showed that she was a poor woman, gathering meager scraps for firewood. Elijah perhaps thought that God would lead him to an unusual rich widow, but God led him to a poor Gentile widow.

i. “You learn this from the fact that she had not even firewood. Now, there was no reason why she should not have had that even in time of famine of bread, for there was no famine of wood, unless she had been extremely poor.” (Spurgeon)

ii. God told Elijah (1 Kings 17:9) that He commanded a widow to feed the prophet. Yet this woman seemed unaware of the command. This shows how God’s unseen hand often works. “She does not appear to have been at all aware that she was to feed a prophet. She went out that morning to gather sticks, not to meet a guest. She was thinking about feeding her son and herself upon the last cake; certainly she had no idea of sustaining a man of God out of that all but empty barrel of meal. Yet the Lord, who never lieth, spoke a solemn truth when he said, ‘I have commanded a widow woman there.’ He had so operated upon her mind that he had prepared her to obey the command when it did come by the lip of his servant the prophet” (Spurgeon).

b. Please bring me a little water in a cup… Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand: Elijah boldly put this request in faith. Common sense and circumstances told him that the widow would not give so generously to a Jewish stranger, but faith made him ask.

i. “This was certainly putting the widow’s faith to an extraordinary trial: to take and give to a stranger, of whom she knew nothing, the small pittance requisite to keep her child from perishing, was too much to be expected.” (Clarke)

ii. God indeed chose this woman, but He chose her for more than a miracle. He chose her for service. “The choice of this woman, while it brought such blessedness to her, involved service. She was not elected merely to be saved in the famine, but to feed the prophet. She must be a woman of faith; she must make the little cake first, and afterwards she shall have the multiplication of the meal and of the oil. 

So the grace of God does not choose men to sleep and wake up in heaven, nor choose them to live in sin and find themselves absolved at the last; nor choose them to be idle and go about their own worldly business, and yet to win a reward at the last for which they never toiled. Ah, no! The sovereign electing grace of God chooses us to repentance, to faith, and afterwards to holiness of living, to Christian service, to zeal, to devotion” (Spurgeon).

(Guzik)

Grace of God!

The sovereign electing grace of God chooses us, He does so expecting an orderly fashion to repentance, to faith, to holiness, to service, to zeal, to devotion! 

I have to admit that when I go into service to God, physically my body runs out of steam after a year! But recently my wife and I have been leading a Life Recovery Bible group at our church for the last two years and three months and the zeal and devotion continues. During group some of the men thanked us for leading this group. The Lord put on my heart to acknowledge and thank them for the encouragement to continue to lead this group. 

How long will it last? As long as the Lord wants, because it’s His ministry not mine. We will continue to give Him all the glory of what happens within this group.

Are you choosing a life of repentance or going about worldly business?

Blessings