Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 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 sends rain on the land.’” (I Kings:17:13&14)
I doubt that the widow would have made a meal for Elijah, had she known that it was him who as per the Lord's command brought the famine over the land. Jesus too spoke on the lines when He referred this incident in Luke:4:24-26 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.
Sometimes, we judge people based on their reputation and miss out on receiving the blessings that the Lord intended to bring upon us through them. Reputation is man's perception of another man, a place or a thing and it's not GOD's. The hometown of Jesus, for example didn't accept Jesus as their Messiah because He hailed from their own town and was the son of a carpenter. This attitude cost the town badly as Jesus didn't perform many miracles owing to their unbelief.
Nathanael, one of the disciples of Jesus didn't believe at first when Philip told him that Jesus from Nazareth is the Messiah. He questioned the reputation of the town that Jesus belonged to - Nazareth. (John:1:45&46). In countries like India, where there are still caste systems in play, believers need to be an example in looking beyond people's reputation (upper or lower caste) and look for something good that GOD has placed in them. It doesn't mean heeding to the voice of an evil man with a bad reputation. It's not that. Let us not allow the reputation of a person be it good or bad, cloud our judgement but lets use the wisdom that the Lord has given us to evaluate people and their words.
Blessings!
I doubt that the widow would have made a meal for Elijah, had she known that it was him who as per the Lord's command brought the famine over the land. Jesus too spoke on the lines when He referred this incident in Luke:4:24-26 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.
Sometimes, we judge people based on their reputation and miss out on receiving the blessings that the Lord intended to bring upon us through them. Reputation is man's perception of another man, a place or a thing and it's not GOD's. The hometown of Jesus, for example didn't accept Jesus as their Messiah because He hailed from their own town and was the son of a carpenter. This attitude cost the town badly as Jesus didn't perform many miracles owing to their unbelief.
Nathanael, one of the disciples of Jesus didn't believe at first when Philip told him that Jesus from Nazareth is the Messiah. He questioned the reputation of the town that Jesus belonged to - Nazareth. (John:1:45&46). In countries like India, where there are still caste systems in play, believers need to be an example in looking beyond people's reputation (upper or lower caste) and look for something good that GOD has placed in them. It doesn't mean heeding to the voice of an evil man with a bad reputation. It's not that. Let us not allow the reputation of a person be it good or bad, cloud our judgement but lets use the wisdom that the Lord has given us to evaluate people and their words.
Blessings!
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