Today's Devotion (Thursday)

At Thy Word!

1 KINGS 17:8-16

Key Verse:

"And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah" (1 Kings 17:16).

Prophet Elijah’s dramatic entry into Scripture turned out to be as eventful as his life was right up to the point when he was caught up to heaven in a chariot of fire. The Bible brings him forth first as the harbinger of God’s judgment of drought upon Israel under the reign of the evil King Ahab. Next, God shields him from the ensuing three-and-a-half-year famine, keeping him by a stream to be fed by birds. When the water dries up, God dispatches His servant to Zarephath where He has "commanded a widow woman there to sustain [him]". The scene then shifts to the home of the poor woman hard hit by the starvation in the land. With an only son, she was preparing the last meal before death. Truly, the circumstances by the widow’s reckoning suggested finality. When Elijah asked for food, she said: "As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die." But Elijah knew that God’s word was not death for the place where He had sent him on a mission. God’s Word would stand no matter what seems contrary. God wrought a great miracle when the woman dwelt on the word of God, the same way Apostle Peter declared he would drop the net at the word of Jesus, leading him to experience a "boat-sinking miracle". All the miracles attributed to Elijah were "according to the word of the LORD." With the whole world and its nations and governments reeling under failed and failing economic, political and philosophical ideologies and strategies such as the northern kingdom of Israel faced in the days of the Zarephath widow, mankind can only be delivered by the same God that came to the woman’s aid. God demands total trust in His Word as revealed to us by Jesus Christ.

Thought for the day: Fallen man can rise again through the power of God’s word.

Bible Reading in one Year: MATTHEW 10 - 11