Your Exceptional Exception

Your Exceptional Exception | Sermon

Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”
—2 Kings 4:2

Today’s Bible reading: 2 Kings 4:1–7

All this woman could focus on was what she didn’t have. Elisha, on the other hand, was interested in her exception. And it was her exception that became the vessel for a miracle.

People often excuse themselves from the miraculous because they don’t have a lot to work with or to offer God to work with. Maybe it’s their lack of skills. An absence of resources. Little experience.

Whatever the reason, what they don’t realize is that their lack in itself makes them candidates for the power of God to flow through their lives.

God has a history of using what little someone has to do great things only He can do. God used a shepherd’s staff to part the Red Sea (see Exodus 14:15–22). He used five loaves and two fish to feed thousands (see Mark 6:30–44). He even used a donkey to talk to someone and save his life (see Numbers 22:21–35).

One of the greatest strategies of the Enemy is to get you to focus on what you don’t have, what you used to have, or what someone else has that you wish you had. Instead of going down that dead-end path, you should look in your house and ask the question, “God, what can You do through what I have?”

So you don’t have the opportunity to stand onstage at a football stadium and preach the gospel like Billy Graham. Who works in your office and needs to know the love of Christ? Share it with them.

So you don’t have the money to write a huge check to a ministry you believe in. A small monthly pledge might be just the thing to stretch your faith while making a big difference through meeting a small need.

So you don’t have the experience necessary to get a new job in a more exciting field. You may be picking up some wax-on-wax-off skills and disciplines that will pave the way for your future in a way you aren’t meant to understand now.

Here’s the profound truth we must begin embracing today: all God needs to work miracles in our lives is all we have. A God who created something out of nothing when He birthed the universe can also create something great out of something little in your life.

Like the widow of Shunem who had only a little oil for Elisha and like the widow Jesus praised for contributing her last pennies to the temple (see Mark 12:41–44), give all you’ve got, however small it is.

God can do exceptional things with your exception.
Prayer Focus: Spend some time thinking about what you do have to offer God, not what you don’t. Then, in prayer, offer it all to Him.