How God Turns Our Offering Into A Supernatural Blessing-Part 2 Series

We praise the Lord that you’ve joined us for Part 2 of ‘How God turns our offering into a supernatural blessing’. Tonight once again we learn about how the sacrifice or vow that we make unto the Lord God Almighty is turned into a wonderful blessing for all eternity, just as we discover, in the lives of Abraham and Hannah. Let’s listen.

“For you to go the next level, I want you to offer up that Isaac, to show whether you are going to be worthy of the greater blessing that I have for you.” See, if Abraham kept Isaac, who was the promised child, and did not offer him up to the Lord when the Lord commanded him, he would have had that natural blessing of having the heir, but he would not have had the supernatural blessing. So the edification to build up the whole earth, to build up the family and generation of Abraham, to give multiplied blessings, he had to obey God and give that up.

Hannah on the other hand was not commanded by God to do this sacrifice. But she perceived in her spirit that, “I need to do something for the Lord. I’ve come to the point where I am at an impossible juncture. I cannot have a child. There is something in my life now that I need to have done, but that is impossible and only God can help me. But I feel in my spirit that the Lord is moving me to make some sort of commitment, some sort of vow, some sort of offering up to God”. It’s not always money; it has to do with the deeper things in our lives.

Let’s read 1 Samuel Chapter 1. [King James Version]

1. Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:

2. And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

3. And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there.

4. And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:

5. But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb.

Now, here is a case where the woman is quite obviously loved by her husband. She seems to have everything that she needs but she doesn’t have a child. Now, that was a social taboo especially in that culture in that age and also today in many circles still. But even barring that, it is a deep source of pain in the heart for those who long to have children and cannot. Here comes the Lord, working in Hannah to long, to call upon Him who alone can do the miracle. Now it says here that she was under persecution.

6. And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.

7. And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.

8. Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?

No answer.

9. So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord.

10. And she was in bitterness of soul. [King James Version]

This is the corner we are speaking about. Being squeezed into a position, where there is deep distress. “Lord, I am longing for something in my life. I need a breakthrough. I need a miracle. I need Your hand to come in and do the miracle.” Hannah was purposely put into that place. Notice, it doesn’t say in the scriptures that she had a genetic problem or that her husband had a physical problem. Notice that there is mention of none of these things there. But, it says clearly that the Lord shut up her womb. Clearly, the Lord was the one who gave Isaac to Abraham, and he was the same God Who came and demanded that Isaac be offered up. We don’t understand many times in the human frame of mind, why God allows certain hard situations, where we can’t seem to prosper in a certain area, or we seem to be on the verge of losing something that we were waiting for and holding on to dearly. But the Lord is saying, “That’s the very thing I want you to give up.”