Is God Greedy?

“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

How much of the readership did I lose with the title of today’s blog?

Please recognize that I posed a question, I did not make a statement.

But as long as I have your attention, how would you answer the question?

Does it bother you to even consider it?

Understand that God is not angry or intimidated by honest questions.

So let’s take a look at it together over the next several days.

Greed is defined by Webster’s dictionary as:

“a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed.”

Perhaps if you are surrendering your life (and are convinced you have surrendered all) but God is requiring more of you, it might be easy to consider Him greedy.  

However, an important lesson to remember is this –

When God appears to be greedy, look deeper.

At first blush it looks awfully selfish of the prophet of God to demand “…a cake of bread…” from the widow, especially after finding out her dire circumstances.

Too be sure, she was – as we might say today – at the end of her rope concerning provision for her and her son.

Yet, his request also came with a promise attached from no less than “…the Lord, the God of Israel…”

A lesson that she learned (and that we must learn today if we are going to be impacted by God and, in turn, impact others) is that whenever God ‘appears’ greedy it is always because He is trying to open heaven over your life.

She could easily have walked away from the man of God, offended by his request, and never known the supernatural provision that awaited her obedience.

We can do the same.

Or, as this widow did, we can defy ‘logic’ and ‘common sense’ to obey the seemingly ‘greedy’ command of God and see the supernatural in our life.