Empty Vessel

Last Sunday (November 20th 2016), Pastor Veronica preached a great message on miracles titled, “The miracle you need is in your house.” It was based on the story of the widow in 2 Kings 4:1–7. So here is the blog post inspired by this message. I encourage you to read the scripture for better understanding.

To start, the widow, I’ll call her Megan, had two sons and her late husband was the son of a prophet and feared the Lord. So here she is with no money, two kids, believing in God but can’t pay her debts. She goes to prophet Elisha and tells him the situation and he asks HER, “what do I do? What do you have in your house?” At this point I’m thinking… obviously nothing!! That’s why she came to you. And Megan responds, “one jar of oil.” Elisha’s advice was to go get EMPTY vessels and bring them back to the house. But why does that make sense? Well because it’s only when the vessels are empty that God can come and fill them. If she were to get full vessels, the story would be that Elisha or her neighbours saved her when in fact it was God.

Second, Megan operated in faith. She believed that even though the vessels weren’t filled, if she kept believing, they would be full. And God provided oil all the way until not one jar remained empty. Only when all the vessels were filled did the oil cease. And yet even with all the filled vessels in her house, she still didn’t realize that what she was in need of was right in front of her.

So here are the nuggets that Rev V left us with:

1. Know where to go when you don’t know what to do (Jeremiah 17:7) — Blessed is the wo/man who trusts and puts their hope in God
2. Seek only God (Matthew 6:33) — Seek first the kingdom and God and His righteousness
3. Find out what’s in your house (your treasures+time+talents) — We must release what we have in order to receive what God has
4. Don’t be blinded by negative attitudes — protect your space, guard your heart
5. Faith requires that you do something (James 2:14–26) — If you believe God will do it, you’re actions should support that.
6. Don’t limit God (2 Kings 4:3–4) — She was told to only get empty vessels. A plan to humble her and increase her dependence on God which to be honest is such a beautiful thing!
7. Shut the door on doubt — Jesus will prove all the doubters wrong. Don’t allow negative people to speak and discourage you from believing God. I’m sure when Megan was getting vessels with her sons, people were whispering ugly things under their breaths.

My Wednesday motivation for the week was this: They were just trying to intimidate us, imagining that they could discourage us and stop the work. SO I continued the work with even greater determination — Nehemiah 6:9. Keep fighting for the thing God has called you to do. Your miracle could be right under your nose.