Is GOD Your First Response or Your Emergency Contact? 2 Kings 4 Sermon | John Giftah

0:01 Speaker 1: Do you ever look around and think, wow, the world is a crazy place, and it just seems to get crazier and crazier? Ease your mind and take a break. This is Fuel for the Soul with John Gifta. We're a hub for inspirational Christian sermons, practical keys for Christian living and Christian discussions and interviews. You'll be inspired to live the life that you were created for. Your host is a top ranking podcaster, bestselling author, world record holder, aerospace engineer, life coach, evangelist and founder of John Gifta International.

0:41 Speaker 1: Welcome to Fuel for the Soul with John Gifta.

0:44 Speaker 2: Hello everyone, welcome to this edition of the John Gifta podcast. All through this week, we're going to look at various lessons we can take away from the life of Elisha with regard to the poor widow found in 2 Kings chapter 4. We're just going to look at the first seven verses in this verse. passage for this week but there's so much to unpack and I just wanted to challenge you to stay tuned because I believe there's so much to take away maybe you're in a season of lack you're in a season where you don't have enough and you're in a season where you feel like like this lady said I'm in big trouble but all I have is a flask of olive oil Today, I want you to stay tuned because I believe that there's something that the Lord wants to minister to you.

1:27 Speaker 2: And I was very much intentional because I said, God, I don't want to preach something that everybody has heard a million times. I always go back to the word and I'm like, God, I want something new. I want you to speak to me. Holy Spirit, there should be new revelations that will speak to people where they are. So I believe that there's so much to unpack in the next couple of days. The first thing I want to talk about here is that it talks about this incident where one day I'm reading to you from the NLT version.

1:55 Speaker 1: All right.

1:56 Speaker 2: The widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried and said, my husband who served you is dead. And, you know, he feared the Lord. But now her creditor has come threatening to take all my two sons as slaves. And Elisha asked, what do you have? And she says nothing at all except a flash of olive oil. OK, now I want to just pause here because I believe the first thing I want to talk about here is try to slow down to understand what could have happened. Right. So there was this lady.

2:33 Speaker 2: who had two sons and her husband, who was actually a member of the house of prophets, had died. So imagine him dying. Imagine the funeral, the memorial service, and then them trying to continue to live life by themselves. Because I want you to understand, this lady does not approach prophet Elisha immediately. Okay, this is something I want you to understand. Because you see, the husband dies and then she has come to a place where by the time she's meeting with prophet Elisha, she's saying, all I have is a flask of olive oil.

3:12 Speaker 2: So I was thinking maybe they had a lot of things. Maybe she had furniture in the house. Maybe she had some utensils. Maybe they had some clothes. They had different things. If they have come to a point where all she had was food, a flask of olive oil that means there would have taken some time before she approached prophet elisha are you getting what i'm saying it would have taken her some time before she took this drastic step to go to prophet elisha and said i don't have anything i don't have anything except this flask of olive oil my house is clean so i wanted to think about this because there is a contrast because if you see the next passage in the same chapter there's a moment when the shunanite woman loses her son and immediately she runs to prophet elisha and says my son is dead and then prophet elisha goes and raises that son back to life okay but here you see this widow After she loses her husband, she does not immediately run to Prophet Elisha.

4:25 Speaker 2: We don't see anything in this passage about her running to Prophet Elisha. She tried to manage with what she had immediately. Maybe she had some resources. Maybe she had some of the things that were left behind by her husband. Maybe she thought, okay, let me get the help of friends and try to sell the things that I have so that I can pay some things. So she tried to manage things by herself. And then when things went out of control, then she approached Prophet Elisha. Whereas you see the Shunanite woman, the minute the The little boy died.

5:01 Speaker 2: She ran and invited Prophet Elisha into the scene. Why am I trying to bring in this contrast? Right. A lot of times what people do is they wait for everything to go out of control before they approach God. They wait for everything or they just in a place where they think, oh, I can manage this. I can handle this. They kind of trust their own instinct. in trying to manage the situation without asking godly wisdom or godly counsel or to be dependent on the holy spirit or to acknowledge god in every step to a point where by the time they go to god god is not their first response when they are in trouble but rather he ends up becoming their emergency way out i hope you're getting what i'm saying Right.

5:48 Speaker 2: My question to you is, is God your first response or is God your emergency contact? Because a lot of people are doing this. And that is what you see with this widow. Because probably I was thinking if Elisha just raised that dead boy back to life, maybe if this widow had approached Elisha right after her husband died, maybe just maybe Elisha could have raised that dead prophet back to life. And life could have continued for them. That could have been an amazing miracle in itself. Right? Or maybe even if she came to a census after he died and they buried and they were in trouble.

6:30 Speaker 2: And then she says, you know what? Before I start selling my stuff, before I start trying to manage things by myself, let me take the help of Elisha. Let me go to him for guidance. Let me take godly wisdom in this regard. Maybe she could have done that. She could have preserved the other things. So this is a message and a wake up call to each one of us that we don't just try to figure things out on our own or handle things out by ourselves, trying to say, oh, let me try myself. And if it doesn't work out, then let me take the help of God.

7:03 Speaker 2: Then let me take some godly advice. Then let me take a step of depending on God.

7:09 Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no.

7:10 Speaker 2: Don't be that kind of a person. Because I want you to understand, sometimes we have this tendency to put self-reliance as the cornerstone, which says, oh, I can handle this. I can manage this to a point where we push God to the corner. And don't let that be you. Don't let that be you. Be in that place like the Shunanite woman. The minute you realize something is going in the wrong direction, take the help of God. depend on god constantly acknowledge god and involve god in every step because i want you to remember this over and over and over again don't wait until you've exhausted yourself before involving the one who already knows what to do this is something i wanted to share don't wait thinking You know what?

8:10 Speaker 2: I'll try this. I'll try that. Let this work out. If it doesn't work out, then I take God's help.

8:15 Speaker 1: No.

8:17 Speaker 2: Take His help now. Talk to Him now. Invite Him into your life now. Acknowledge Him now. Get godly wisdom now. Seek Him now. Because now is the time. Not after you lose everything. Now is the time for you to depend on God. I just want to close with this example from my life when I was doing my aerospace engineering. There were different subjects that I need to deal with. And one of the subjects was a free elective that I had to deal with. And for some reason, it was just not getting into my head.

8:57 Speaker 2: It was something, I think it was web technology or something. And no matter how much I tried, it was not getting into my head. I thought, you know what, I'll just somehow manage. I'll just take some steps to just mug up the steps. Let me manage and all of these things. And somehow I managed through the internals and all of that. But in the final, I failed. OK, so I ended up having a backlog. And so the next time what I did was I didn't wait for the finals. I didn't wait for the end of semester exams.

9:33 Speaker 2: Right after I realized I failed, I started taking steps. I started involving God. First of all, I said, God, I need you to help me with this subject. This subject is troubling me. God, I need your help. I need your strength. I need your grace. So I started involving God. I started taking some steps, took some help of certain people to guide me in that subject, started studying it intensely from the beginning. And I was able to clear that with actually, I think around 70 or 80% marks from failing in it to actually clearing with 70 to 80% marks.

10:11 Speaker 2: See, that's what I want you to understand. That's what I realized. See, maybe if I didn't want God in the beginning, when I saw trouble, I may not have even had that backlog. Maybe if I had trusted in God and, uh, taken some steps or cried out for help maybe I wouldn't have had that setback but sometimes we go to God after we have the setback and then we figure out okay this is all I have this is the second chance I'm having now what God wants me to do and so let this be a message to you that You don't take God as your emergency contact.

10:53 Speaker 2: Take God as your first response. And maybe if you're watching today with that hope crush thing, I made this mistake, John. Now I'm lost with I've lost it I've made this mistake maybe you are listening watching after that but I want to tell you the same way God showed mercy to this widow God will show mercy to you if all you have is just a flask with olive oil God can still turn around your life God can still do something unusual so I really challenge you to share this with someone and And leave a comment if you're checking this out on YouTube.

11:30 Speaker 1: You've been listening to Fuel for the Soul with John Gifta. We hope you were blessed and inspired to live the life that God has for you. Make sure to subscribe to the John Gifta YouTube channel for regular uploads of sermons. skits, interviews, and more. Follow John Gifta on Instagram for regular inspirational posts. And don't forget to check out the bestselling books written by John Gifta, Who Am I?, which will help you understand your identity. And the latest number one bestseller, Unveil Your Purpose, helping you discover your purpose and to start walking in it.

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