Prophecy
Offering Plate Pre$$ure
shared by Patricia Backora, author of: Tough Love in Christ’s Millennium
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I Kings chapter 17; John 5:1-9; II Corinthians 8:11-15
There was once a famine in Israel. It took My miracle-working power to provide food for My servant Elijah. Wild blackbirds delivered food to him, as he lingered beside a brook, drinking of its waters. Eventually it dried up because of the relentless drought. At that point, I directed Elijah to go to a Syrian village, and ask a poor widow to sustain him with what little food she had.
At first she hesitated, for she had only a tiny drop of olive oil and a handful of meal left in a jar. She and her son would eat that food for their last meal, and then slowly starve to death. But My servant Elijah had good news for her: If only she would share what she had with him, she and her boy would have plenty to eat, enough to keep them alive till the famine was over. She fed him first, trusting in Me to perform My Word and keep them all alive. To her delight, she was able to bake cake after cake, until the three of them had had enough. And there was food left over for future meals.
During the famine, the prophet dwelt in a guest room of the woman’s house. He watched over her house for good. He raised her son from death when he succumbed to an illness. Elijah had a very real concern for this woman’s welfare. There was mutual support in seeing one another through that awful famine. That’s the kind of empathy I meant for the members of My Body on earth to have one with another, an attitude where the life of each member is deemed to be very precious.
But this Biblical incident has been twisted by “faith” preachers. The poorest TV viewers are pressured to sacrifice all, and to do it immediately, or else “they’ll miss the stirring of the waters”, and someone else will get the blessing instead. This ruse is used by unscrupulous preachers who recall the story of the pool called “Bethesda”, a place whose name means “House of Mercy”. An angel would descend from heaven at widely spaced intervals and impart temporary healing properties to its water. Whoever dipped into that water first was healed of whatever disease he had.
But My Son brought a fuller revelation of My merciful grace and lovingkindness to a nation which had, up to that time, known only a partial revelation. He came to fulfill My Word, and to reveal the fullness of My glory. Moreover, He came to lift up those deemed to be the underdogs of society, and to confound the wisdom of the proud. He declared that those who had always come first would be last, and those willing to take the lowest places would be the exalted ones in His Kingdom. He took pity on one poor man who had always been unable to dip into the pool first. That man, who had been paralytic for 38 long years, received healing from far better waters; even through the Water of Life, imparted by My Holy Son Who is One with Me, the Fountain of Living Waters. For the man who had encountered Yahweh-Rapha, the Healing God of Israel, there was glorious rest. No longer would he live daily in unrestful vigilance and anxiety, competing with others to get My blessing first. The con artist ministers unrest to those whom I have called to enter into My Rest of Faith! And unrest gives rise to foolish decisions based on fear, not faith!
The viewer impulsively gives out of her poverty, afraid to pray an extra day to make certain that I, not some fly-by-night operator, direct her giving. And her gift goes, not to provide food for a prophet, but profits for a fool.
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