"FOOD FOR HEALTH"

Good Evening to All!

Tonight's devotion comes from the story of the widow who fed Elijah with her last bit of meal and oil thinking it was going to be her and her son's last meal.

As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it , and die. (13) And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. (14) For thus says the Lord God of Israel: 'The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.'"

(16) The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah. (1 Kings 17:12-14, 16 NKJV)

During the five year famine in Israel, this widow and her son almost starved to death. I can just see in my mind's eye the conversation going on between this widow and Elijah.

I can't help but wonder how many of us would be willing to do the same today. I hope I would have enough faith, but at the same time, there are so many false prophets out there in the world now days I would really be worried that God may not be speaking through him. I would probably come closer to doing it if I didn't have a child. If it was just me I had to worry about feeding, but I don't know if I could take food from my child to give a stranger. I would like to think so. I would like to think that if that instance ever comes up in my life, that I would have enough of the fruit of the Spirit in me to not hesitate. To offer what I have right off, but I won't know until that circumstance comes up. Until then I can think of a million excuses that people would come up with to keep from doing it.

One excuse being, things were different back then. They didn't have the distractions that we have now to get their minds off of God. If I said that, though, I would have to rebuke myself, because as true Christians we shouldn't let things of this world distract us from God. If we would stay focused on Him, we would have the same amount of faith that they had back then and would be able to discern if this person was telling the truth or just wanting us to feed him. Another excuse I used to use is I don't want to give them money because they are liable to just buy beer or liquor with it. The Lord has spoken to my spirit several times about that and told me the same thing I'm going to tell you. Buy them some food if you don't trust them to do so. If they are really hungry they would be happy with a hamburger or ecstatic if you took them to a restaurant. That is not a legitimate excuse. That's what we call a "cop out".

Either way, we should be willing to do it. Jesus said whatever we do for the "least of them" we do for Him. This tells me it shouldn't matter who it is. If someone comes up hungry, we need to stand on faith, knowing that this is what God would want and feed that person.

Yes, God will bless us for doing it, but that should not be the reason for our actions. We should do it because it is what we would want someone to do for us if we were hungry, but had no food.

We must always remember, we wouldn't have what we do if it wasn't for His provisions anyway, so next time you see someone on the street with a sign saying "will work for food, go to the nearest burger place and buy him a burger or something. If your spouse is with you, that person to a restaurant for a meal. The reason I differentiate is for safety. While I believe in being Christlike and compassionate, I also believe in being safe.

I know this is quite a bit shorter than my usual post, but I am really trying to work on keeping my posts short and to the point so that my readers don't get tired of reading.

Good Night to All and May God Bless!