8Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9“Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” 10So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and said, “Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink.” 11As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.” 12But she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.” 13Then Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. 14“For thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain on the face of the earth.’” 15So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. 16The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through Elijah.
I promised you a couple of days ago that we would speak a little more about Elijah’s faith; so here we go. When Elijah came into the city, he noticed a woman gathering sticks. He must have been thirsty so he asked her to please bring him a little water in a jar. I don’t think he thought this was the woman whom God had commanded to provide for him, because she probably looked pretty ragged, and initially he didn’t ask for food. She sure didn’t look like God’s provision. As she went to go get him some water he must have heard God say ” this is the one”, so he called out to her and asked her to bring him a piece of bread. When he did, she explained to him that she only had a little flour in a bowl, and a little oil in a jar, and that she was going to go prepare a piece of bread for herself and her son as a last meal, and then they were going to wait for death to come. She sure didn’t seem to know that God had commanded her to provide for His prophet. Even if she did, she obviously didn’t have the ability. Elijah must have been thinking a lot of stuff; like,”I must have missed it somewhere”. “This can’t be the right lady.” If you don’t think Elijah was capable of doubts and fears, just read on in 1 Kings, and see how he reacted to Jezebel’s threats. James said he was a man with a nature just like the rest of us. I can tell you what I would be thinking. Something along the line of “UH OH.” At that moment he probably heard God say again, “This is the Woman.” Elijah at that moment had a choice, give in to his doubts and fears, or ACT in faith. If he had given into his doubts and fears, both he and the woman would have missed out on the miracle of God’s provision, and his destiny would have taken a detour. He also would have missed the expansion of the anointing that was about to play out in the next scene. Well, he chose to move in faith. He decided to receive as substance what he saw in the spirit and perfected faith, by speaking what he knew was already true and real as far as God was concerned. Remember, what he saw in the natural contradicted everything he spoke. It didn’t matter to him. He had already received it as substance. When he spoke it, the command was released and the miraculous provision was manifested in the natural again. Remember that God moves according to our faith. The provision was there. It already existed, but it was realized as Elijah stepped out in faith. The command, already given was waiting on Elijah’s faith. We will talk a little more about that faith tomorrow. Have great day living in the realized provision of God by faith.