God Is Your Provider
1 Kings 17:1–16
1 Kings 17:8–16 (NIV)
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
2 Then the word of the LORD cam to Elijah:
3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.
4 You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”
5 So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there.
6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
1 Kings 17:7 (NIV)
Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
1. When you need provision get a word from God
1 Kings 17:8 (NIV)
Then the word of the LORD came to him:
1 Kings 17:9 (NIV)
“Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.”
2. Faith is the key to experiencing God’s provision
Lesson: Never lose sight of your past when God is leading you to your future.
1 Kings 17:10 (NIV)
So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?”
1 Kings 17:11–12 (NIV)
11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
12 “As surely as the LORD your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread — only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it — and die.”
1 Kings 17:13–14 (NIV)
13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.
14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’”
Faith is the key to experiencing God’s provision!
1 Kings 17:15–16 (NIV)
15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.
16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.
“Faith is acting like God is telling the truth.”
