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Recall that the Bible says, God “is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). William Carey said, “Expect great things from God, attempt greatest things for God.” Our problem is that we sometimes operate with a mindset of spiritual scarcity, as if God’s blessings were based on a zero sum paradigm. In other words, God’s pie is only so big, with a limited amount to go around. We go to the throne with a teaspoon in hand when God is perfectly willing for us to pull up in a tanker truck. Desperate as she was and following the prophet’s commands, the poor widow paved the way for a miraculous bounty, characterized first by multiplication. Her small jar of oil produced numerous jars, as long as her sons kept bringing them to her. Remember from chapter 2 the widow of Zarephath who supplied Elijah with bread and water. Her handful of flour and small amount of olive oil was not used up until the drought ceased and the Lord sent rain. . 2+2+2+2+2+2+2 = 14, whereas 2x2x2x2x2x2x2 = 128 Kingdom math operates in much the same way. We’re prone to think in the realm of addition while God often operates through multiplication. God provides evidence of this principle in a promise to the children of Israel in the days of Moses: “Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword” (Leviticus 26:8). In Jesus’ parable of the sower, the seed that fell on good soil bore “fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold” (Mark 4:20). The widow’s oil was growing at such a rate until multiplication gave way to termination. When all the jars were full, the woman asked her son for another. “But he replied, ‘There is not a jar left.’ Then the oil stopped flowing” (2 Kings 4:6). Does this mean the oil flow

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