Setting out the Jars.
In 2 Kings 4:1-6 there is an incredible story.
A woman whose husband died was at the end of her rope. She had a son, no food and no money to buy food. In fact all she had was a tiny jar of oil. She came to the prophet and asked him for advice. He told her to go get several jars from her friends and bring them back to her home then pour the oil in the jars she collected.
Her and her son went and collected as many jars as they could. Once they thought they had enough they took the jars back to their home, closed the door and began to pour. To their amazement the oil from the little jar she held in her hand filled up one jar, then another, then another and another. In fact it filled up every single jar she laid out that day. Once all the jars she had collected were filled all the way to the top, the oil stopped.
This story is amazing.
What we see here is that God was able to fill up every jar this woman had enough faith to set out. If she set out 10 jars, he would fill up 10. If she set out 100 jars he would fill up 100.
It was her job to get the jars … it was God’s job to fill them up.
I have seen this story come to pass not only thru my years in student ministry but specifically in the past 12 weeks here in Visalia.
When we arrived we had two jars, we had a room and a giant field, this is what we had, these were our two jars. We met, we strategized, and we started building the team. Each week we set these two jars out for God to fill up and you know what … HE DID.
The room is totally full of teenagers. The giant field is full. In fact next week we will have to do our service outside because we will not have enough space in the current room we are meeting in to minister to the teenagers that are going to show up.
Just like the widow woman. We set out jars and God filled them up.
So now there is only one thing to do … go get more jars!
This fall we are moving our youth ministry to another campus that our church owns.This facility has a 700 seat auditorium, prayer room, two discipleship rooms, gymnasium, outer courtyard, large field, large outdoor concrete area for activities, café and second auditorium that will seat more than 300.
When I look at this facility I do not see rooms, auditoriums and places for teenagers to eat. What I see is jars. When we move over to this facility in September we are setting out 10 jars for God to fill up.
On Wednesday nights the gym, the courtyard, the auditorium are all going to full to the brim with teenagers. There will be tall ones, short, ones, rich ones and poor ones. They will come from miles around, not because we are amazing, not because we are cool, they will come because we had enough faith to place a jar before our God.
Just like the widow in 2 Kings, it’s our job to get the jars … it’s His job to fill them up.
