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👉🏼 (Reading: Luke 4:22-28)
📜 ""Certainly there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the heavens were closed for three and a half years, and a severe famine devastated the land.""
Luke 4:25 (NLT)
📋 We have needs but God requires that we help others who are also in need. Jesus knew that many Jews would reject him saying, "Physician, heal yourself". This was fulfilled as one of the two insurrectionists crucified with him, said, "Save yourself and save us!."
But Jesus's way is not to save himself before saving us. He went all out to save us. We must accept Jesus' approach and think like soldiers at the war front. We are called to help others despite our own challenges.
On the battlefield wounded soldiers help others despite their own wounds. Wounds make us wiser and stronger so that we become healers to others under the same burdens we once carried. Again, God directed Elijah to an obedient widow in Sarepta (Zarephath).
Jesus said many such widows existed but Elijah was sent to only the one who would accept God's word In a severe famine, the widow was still hospitable to a strange man. Despite your serious needs, that of others remains a channel for your blessing. Although you have needs, you can help others in your own small way.
🔑 Key Lesson: Jesus healed us by his stripes. We must also help or heal others although we are hurting and in need.
🛐 Meditation and Prayer: Lord, make me selfless and an imitator of your sacrificial self-giving to heal and help others despite my wounds.
📚 Further Reading: 1 Kings 17:8-16.
◼️ The Bible in One Year: Isaiah 15-19.