What do you have in your house?
WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR HOUSE?
A house is defined as a structure built or serving as an abode of human beings. House is a building in which people live. We also keep things and properties in the house. The house is a place where we live, sleep, eat and meet with other people.
2Ki 4:1-3 KJV 1 Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the LORD: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. 2 And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil. 3 Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.
The question was asked by Elisha the man of God when a widow woman came calling to tell him about the creditors that have come to take possession of her two sons for her inability to pay up the debts owned by her late husband who might have use the two sons has collateral.
The man was a man of God, he was one of the students in the school of prophets administered by Elisha and had a good testimony that he feared the Lord. Bible has told us that the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom. Even though he had a good testimony he died indebted and let his young wife and two children with burden of debts.
It is a known truth that the fact that you know the Lord and serve Him does not preclude you from swage and storm of life. Many of today Christian would have been asking questions why him? Was he not a prophet? Why did God allow this kind of thing to happen to His own servant?
The Bible did not tell us what transpired between the prophet and his creditors, what he used the money to do and what happened that he could not pay up the loan before he died. But whatever happened, one fact is real, serving the Lord does not automatically results in prosperity. It has to be learnt. Most Christians today suffer because we don’t know the principles of prosperity in the kingdom, we just believe that since we are devoted and committed to God, things will work out. It doesn’t work out that way.
When the woman came Elisha, like many people would expect that the man of God would enter into the house and brings out bundles of money to solve the financial problems that one of his students had found himself in. It is likely that the woman came with the intention of receiving from the man of God. But here Elisha threw the question to the woman and asked her what she has in her house.
Why will the prophet asked the woman what she had in the house? Why didn’t he just solve the woman’s problem. The reasons are if the man of God had gave her some money, she would still come back for more especially anytime she is in need. Another reason is that Elisha was trying to teach the woman a great lesson which we are about to learn..
Elisha asked her what the woman has in the house. The more reason is that anytime God want to change a man’s life, He doesn’t look far. Remember when He wanted to meet the need in the first man’s life which was to find an help meet for him, God did not start to create a afresh rather He opened Adam up and from him He took a rib wit which He made the woman. God uses what is already available in and around us to turn our stories around.
On the part of the woman, she never knew sha had something. The pot of oil seems insignificant compare to the myriads of problems around her. In fact her mind did not even go there that the pot of l could be a solution to er need. So she just told the man of God that she had nothing, then suddenly she remember the pot oil.
When you read the account down, it was the same forgotten, neglected and abandon pot of oil that was multiplied that solve the financial problem of the woman. Elisha told her that she should sell part of the oil and live on the rest. In order words he told her to go and do business.
Today if the same question that what do we have in our houses is thrown at us under the New Covenant, what will be our response? I know many of us will quickly cast our mind back to where we left in the day or where we slept in the night and we will bring our mind to what and what we have left in the house physically and those in the bond market and in stocks.
Under the new Covenant, the house is not the physical structure where we sleep, bath, rest and do stuffs. The house of a believer is his body. A man is a spirit that has soul and lives in a physical body. Where we live in is our house. The body is a house. 2Cor 3:16; 2Cor 6:16-19. Our body the temple of the Holy Spirit. He dwells in a believer. Peter talked about his earthly tabernacle which he must leave sooner when he was writing the General epistle. Paul also talked about the earthly tabernacle that we. So basically, the body of the believer is house.
1Co 3:16 KJV Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17 KJV If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
1Co 6:19 KJV What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
2Co 6:16 KJV And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
1Co 3:9 KJV For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
1Pe 2:5 KJV Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Heb 3:6 KJV But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
1Co 3:9 KJV For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
2Co 4:7 KJV But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
2Co 5:1 KJV For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2Co 5:4 KJV For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
2Pe 1:13 KJV Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
2Pe 1:14 KJV Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
Every one of us has need and the question that we will be asked or we should ourselves is what do you have in the house? Of course by now your mind will not go back to your physical house as a New Testament man but your body. Many of us may be trying to figure out what s it that i have in this body?
You have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. He is he primary occupant of your body because He dwells in your spirit. With the Holy Spirit are His gifts and endowment, abilities and power. The grace and strength of God are there too.
Your natural abilities, talents and gifts are also in you. These are the things that heaven has deposited inside of you and it is expected that we make use of them to solve our needs.
People use to say the money is the problem that is hindering me from starting my business but i believe it is not the lack of money that is the problem but absent of a laudable idea. Idea actually rule the world. What we need most of the time is profit oriented ideas for business. Nobody will put his money to support you o partner with you when you don’t have a concrete well written business proposal. You have not even done any home work as regards what you feel or desire to do. Our mind is a treasure house which we must task and exercise it. By the time we begin to use our mind for something other than amusement then we will be able to maximise its potential. What will solve our problems is already inside of us. This is what our Lord has to say:
Joh 7:38 KJV He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
He mentioned “rivers” which is in plural form. Many rivers will flow out from such a man; river of evangelism, healing, counselling people, helping people, gifts of Holy Ghost, healing the sick, encouraging people and so many things. We are not limited or disadvantaged at all. We are bundles of talents and resources and whatever we do has success and prosperity attach to it.
What do you have in the house that can solve your problem? We need to look inwards rather than outwards. Find out what you do easily and effortlessly. Find out what makes you upset ad angry that if you were given opportunity you can change the story, this may provide clue to your assignment and purpose in life.