How Big is Your Vessel?

God pours his rain on both the good and the wicked, the poor and the rich.

It is the same rain that falls in a rich man’s house that also falls in a poor man’s house. the difference is in the vessel they use to store the water.

Someone can decide to use a cup to store the water or even a teaspoon, while someone else uses giant drums, and basins and empties them into a geepee tank as they get filled.

In this case, God is not the determinant of who has less or more water, it is totally up to each person’s decision on what to store the water with.

Don’t say ‘What if the poor man doesn’t have big vessels, what will he do?’

Well, he can rent or borrow. The water would be enough for him to make money back to pay whoever he rents from.

There is no excuse.

This is not just me making up things, it’s a true-life story.

Not exactly like this, but similar.

There was a woman whose husband died in debt.

He was a prophet, and he served under another higher prophet. The debt of this late prophet was so much that the person he owed decided to take the prophet’s 2 children as a replacement for the debt. This shows us how much the debt was. So the bereaved wife had 2 troubles to deal with, her husband was dead, and her children were about to be taken away from her. She ran to the higher prophet, crying for help. When I read this story, a question came to my mind.

How come this great prophet did not have a debt? Were they not both prophets? What did he know that the other prophet didn’t know till he died in debt? The answer is simple, what you know does not work for you, it is what you put to work that works.

Knowledge itself is powerful but only those who use it will experience its power.

Back to the story. The prophet asked the woman, what do you have and here is her response-

Nothing at all, except a jar of olive oil.

You notice that she first of all said ‘nothing at all’, she didn’t consider the ‘jar of oil’ as anything.

Many people are usually like that. They always think they have nothing.

When they say give, they say – I don’t have.

Start a business, ‘I don’t have capital’.

Do this job – ‘I don’t have strength’

Apply for this job – ‘I don’t have connection’

There is always something they don’t have and that’s been their excuse for never moving forward in life.

Thank God the woman quickly remembered the jar. There is always a jar with everyone, the biggest work is to recognize the jar.

It’s a similar question God asked Moses when he had just a staff with him. He recognized the staff and that led to a lot of miracles. There is always a tiny thing you have that God can use or multiply.

Jesus also demonstrated this when he multiplied 2 fish and 3 loaves of bread.

Back to our story.

After paying she had a jar of oil, prophet instructed her to borrow more jars and pots.

Did he say ‘borrow’? The same thing that led her into this awkward situation.

The same borrowing her husband did till he died and he didn’t achieve success.

But now she has to do it again, in a different situation. The information, tools, and opportunities we have are not always the problem is how we use them that matters most.

So Mrs Widow and her children went to borrow jars as instructed. If they knew what was coming, maybe they would have borrowed more or even rented. Because they would later be able to afford to buy all those jars.

Now they went into their rooms and locked the doors, as the Prophet said.

See, what they are about to do, if some hear about it, they’ll laugh them to scorn.

They will discourage them with their unbelief and it may never have worked, maybe that’s why they were asked to shut the doors.

In their house, they started filling the olive oil from the jar they had into the ones they borrowed.

They kept going on and on, and the oil did not finish until the woman asked for more and the children responded –

There aren’t any more!

And that’s when the oil stopped flowing. I wish that moment never came, maybe one of the boys could have quickly sold some oil and bought more vessels – just an imagination.

That was how the woman’s life changed, all debt paid.

The story is from 2 Kings 4, Prophet Elisha is the great prophet.

So how big is your own vessel?

How much of the wealth that God gave to you can you take?

God has lavishly poured out his blessings but how much of it can you take?

It is not up to Him, he gave us all things already, it is up to you.

You want N40M from God, but your only income source is a N100k salary job.

That vessel is not bad but it is small.

Even if you saved your entire salary, when will you become a Millionaire?

The more vessels may not be another job, it may be a new business or a side hustle.

You might just need to scale your business

You basically need to create more opportunities or channels for God to bless you through.

The more you have, the more God’s blessings can flow to you.

God is not withholding; you just cannot receive more than your vessels.

Fortunately, whatever vessels you decide to get (of course, prayerfully) – God will help you in getting them.

He is bought the giver of vessels and the filler of vessels.

Let me stop here, we can now pass the offering vessel:)