TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 28TH NOVEMBER 2023)
“Elijah said to her, Fear not; go and do as you have said. But make me a little cake of [it] first and bring it to me, and afterward prepare some for yourself and your son.
For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: The jar of meal shall not waste away or the bottle of oil fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.
She did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days.
The jar of meal was not spent nor did the bottle of oil fail, according to the word which the Lord spoke through Elijah.” 1 Kings 17:13-16 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 332ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Today we will be looking at a fresh law of visionary living. We will be looking at the law of being faithful in another man’s own.
The law of being faithful in another man’s own is a critical law that is very difficult to obey in a world where everyone wants to lead, want to be served and want to be known. Very few still want to be led, serve others and be behind the scenes.
But let us lay some foundation for this truth on who you really are.
To start with, someone once said, “within every man is a destiny waiting to be born.” Yes, there is! Irrespective of Your history or life experience. You are here to make a unique and valuable contribution to the divine evolution of the human race orchestrated by GOD.
Whatever might have happened to you, is actually not as important as what God has prepared to do with your life. You still have a role to play, a need to meet, and a people or person to save, or to be a solution to the problems of their lives.
Understand that “Everything and everyone in creation, is connected to a larger system, that allows the whole of God’s creation to operate in harmony.”
If you look carefully at God’s creation, you will realize that everything is, in some way, a response to a need. For instance, the fishes are a response to the need of the ocean, seas and rivers to have aquatics. They also are response to the nutritional and survival need of mankind.
The oceans, seas and rivers themselves, are a response to the need of fishes and all aquatic animals to have an ideal environment to live and thrive. They are also a response to men and creation’s need for water and all other precious minerals we can find in the belly of oceans and seas.
The air was created as a response to the respiratory need of all living things. Gasses are a response to the need of combustion and etc. Trees are a response to the need for carbon dioxide, combustion, furniture, food and aboral animals.
WE CAN GO ON AND ON.
So, if you are part of God’s creation, then you are a response to a need. Yes, you are an answer to a prayer, and a solution to a problem. That is who you are! Forget about what anyone may think about you. Pay more attention to what God thinks. There is a reason for your being born on earth.
The world needs you, that’s why GOD created you.
Visionary living will involve finding, and taking your place in the larger system that allows the whole of God’s creation to operate in harmony.
It will involve finding the need GOD created you to be a response to, the prayer you were born to be an answer to, or the problem you were fashioned to be a solution to, and becoming all of that to them.
There are few Bible examples I want to highlight.
There are many scammers, thieves among us preachers, and charlatans who have used her story to steal from naïve people in Church, but the widow of Zarephath was an answer to the need of the economic sustenance of the worK God called Elijah to do at Sidon.
Elijah on the other hand was an answer to her need for life and supernatural sustenance in the midst of famine.
Their spiritual relationship produced a wonderful synergy and a generational impact in God’s kingdom, because both of them were solutions to each other’s needs. Relationship is only meaningful when we are solutions to each other’s need.
By the leading of the Holy Spirit, Elijah found her gathering sticks to make her last meal, and in her words “die after the meal” and presented God’s plan for her life to her. He made her to understand what she was destined to take care of at the time.
She would later understand her place in destiny as a solution to Elijah’s problem and an answer to his prayer and took it, but she only took it when she saw that Elijah was a solution to her need for supernatural sustenance at the time.
THAT IS WHAT VISIONARY LIVING IS.
Visionary living involves sensing the need you were born, or designed by time and experiences to meet in another person’s life, and sensing the need that other person was born or designed by experience to meet in your own life and positioning for all that to happen.
You will step into your place in destiny if you do.
Yes, you will end up fitting into the larger system of God’s kingdom advance if you take the simple step. The Widow of Zarephath and Elijah, ended up fitting into the larger system of God’s kingdom at the time, helping it to function in Harmony for over three years in Sidon.
They both served each other’s vision. They helped each other become what God created them to be. That is how the law of being faithful in another man’s own works. It is a major asset or principle of visionary living.
The result of their visionary living was the taking down of the power base of Baal. God will also respond with provisions from unexpected ends for all the three- and half-year period she served as an answer to Elijah’s prayer and solution to his problem.
You will never lack if you live a visionary life.
Yes, you will never lack if you find out the need you were designed to meet, and serve the person or people with that need, while the person or people serve you in return, by solving the need they were designed to meet in your life. You will enjoy provisions from unexpected ends.
People suffer in life, for not finding those with needs God designed them to solve, and solving them, while the people in return serve them by solving their own need too.
The widow survived by serving who she was designed to serve.
You will always survive by finding who you were designed by God to serve, and serving them while they serve you too, not by begging or borrowing. On the other side of the coin, Elijah also served her as an answer to her prayer and a solution to her problem.
Do not forget, we said earlier that she was preparing for death when the man of GOD came, and she got life instead. Even her Son who was latter struck with death was raised by God through the man of God.
SO, AS SHE WAS AN ANSWER TO HIS PRAYER, SO WAS ELIJAH AN ANSWER TO HER PRAYERS TOO.
That is what visionary living does to all of us. It makes us solutions to each other’s problems and answers to each other’s prayer, not liabilities to each other or to anyone who is an asset to us.
Your mentality in life should be to solve the problems of anyone who God may be using to solve your own problems in life. If you do not do that, you will not last in the place of success, progress, comfort or joy.
If your life is not an answer to someone’s prayer, and at the same time someone’s life an answer to your own prayer, you will never enjoy significant progress, favours, blessings, or outbreaks of GOD in life.
There is a prosperity system in God that only comes to you when you function as an answer to someone’s prayer (or a solution to someone’s problem), and someone also function as an answer to your own prayers. Then you spend your days living that way.
That was the prosperity system that changed the life of the widow of Zarephath, and sustained the kingdom of God by Elijah’s hand. Not the one of giving all kinds of sacrifices to a preacher, with the hope that God will turn things around for you.
Your life is the next to be changed by the same prosperity system! You only need to make the right changes to experience the change. That is the much we can give today. We will pick up from here when we return tomorrow.
A major highlight in our devotional text says,
“She did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days.
The jar of meal was not spent nor did the bottle of oil fail, according to the word which the Lord spoke through Elijah.” 1 Kings 17:16 AMPC
It is my prayer that you find your own Elijah-widow economic system, because there are so many on earth. For once, we should break from the stealing chain established in church around that story, and embrace what the LORD has revealed to us this morning.
Get someone with a need you were designed to solve and be faithful in serving the person, while the person serves you by solving your own need. That is the first aspect of the law of being faithful in another man’s own.
It is an upright walk that will make sure no good thing is withheld from you in life.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11 AMPC