(CLICK THE TITLE) Good morning and praise God for another day to glorify His name. Use this and everyday wisely. There is somebody besides myself that needs this message today because it’s sitting real heavy in my spirit. Who ever it is will probably get a release in their spirit just as I did. Let scripture and the story bless you.
Today’s Prayer
Father, This morning I am moved to pray for new Christians. Satan doesn’t want them to be happy with their decision to follow you. He wants to trip them up any way he can. Please, send a legion of guardian angels to surround them and protect them from harm and evil. Give them extra strength to reject the temptations that Satan sends their way. Help them to stand strong upon the Rock of their salvation and not to doubt. I pray for them and for all Christians to have faith that can move mountains, grace for the moment, and guidance for today and every day to come. I praise You and thank You, all-powerful, all-knowing God, full of grace and truth. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Let’s eat.
Mixing Faith with commerce
2 Kings 4
1. One day the wife of one of the seminary students came to Elisha to tell him of her husband’s death. He was a man who had loved God, she said. But he had owed some money when he died, and now the creditor was demanding it back. If she didn’t pay, he said he would take her two sons as his slaves.
2. “What shall I do?” Elisha asked. “How much food do you have in the house?” ‘Nothing at all, except a jar of olive oil,” she replied.
This story tells of a woman whose husband had died. There was no way to fulfill the debts that her husband left behind. Her creditors decided to take her two sons as slaves for payment of the obligations that still remained. She pleaded for assistance with the only man of God she knew.
“Is there anything in your house?” Elisha asked. “Nothing at all,” she said, “except a little oil.” Elisha then instructed her to go and collect all the empty jars that her neighbors might possess. “Ask for as many as you can,” he instructed. When the jars were collected, he instructed her to pour what little oil she had into the jars. The oil was more than enough to fill the jars. In fact, there was more oil than jars to fill. “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left” (2 Kings 4:7).
God often mixes faith with the tangible. The widow believed she had no resources to meet her need. God said she had more than enough resources. She didn’t see the oil as a resource. It didn’t become a resource until it was mixed with faith. Her need was met when her faith was mixed with the practical step of going into the world around her to sell what she had in order to receive her needed income. In fact, there was so much income she was able to pay her debts and live on the money she got from the sale.
Quite often we forget that God works through commerce to provide for our needs. It’s wrong to place total trust in commerce without faith in God. He often requires simple obedience to an act that seems ridiculous to the logical mind. It’s this faith mixed with the practical that He honors.
Do you have a problem that is perplexing to you? Do you see no way of meeting your need? God may have already given you the skills and talents to meet your need. However, He may be waiting for you to mix them with faith. Ask God to show you the steps necessary to solve your problem. Be willing to take the next step.
Quote of the Day
Faith is rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that goodwill to any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his own poor performances or goodness’s, and relying implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
Horatius Bonar
WITH HOPE AND FAITH
REV. ELDER G E STERRETT
FOUNDER
GCKRS HELPING HAND FOUNDATION – THE RELATIONSHIP FACTORY