Today 2 Kings 6

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.

2 Kings 6:1-33 -
The Floating Ax Head
1One day the group of prophets came to Elisha and told him, "As you can see, this place where we meet with you is too small. 2Let's go down to the Jordan River, where there are plenty of logs. There we can build a new place for us to meet." "All right," he told them, "go ahead."
3"Please come with us," someone suggested. "I will," he said.
4When they arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees. 5But as one of them was chopping, his ax head fell into the river. "Ah, my lord!" he cried. "It was a borrowed ax!"
6"Where did it fall?" the man of God asked. When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water. Then the ax head rose to the surface and floated. 7"Grab it," Elisha said to him. And the man reached out and grabbed it.

Elisha Traps the Arameans
8When the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he would confer with his officers and say, "We will mobilize our forces at such and such a place."
9But immediately Elisha, the man of God, would warn the king of Israel, "Do not go near that place, for the Arameans are planning to mobilize their troops there." 10So the king of Israel would send word to the place indicated by the man of God, warning the people there to be on their guard. This happened several times.
11The king of Aram became very upset over this. He called in his officers and demanded, "Which of you is the traitor? Who has been informing the king of Israel of my plans?"
12"It's not us, my lord," one of the officers replied. "Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom!"
13The king commanded, "Go and find out where Elisha is, and we will send troops to seize him." And the report came back: "Elisha is at Dothan." 14So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city. 15When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. "Ah, my lord, what will we do now?" he cried out to Elisha.
16"Don't be afraid!" Elisha told him. "For there are more on our side than on theirs!" 17Then Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!" The LORD opened his servant's eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.
18As the Aramean army advanced toward them, Elisha prayed, "O LORD, please make them blind." And the LORD did as Elisha asked. 19Then Elisha went out and told them, "You have come the wrong way! This isn't the right city! Follow me, and I will take you to the man you are looking for." And he led them to Samaria. 20As soon as they had entered Samaria, Elisha prayed, "O LORD, now open their eyes and let them see." And the LORD did, and they discovered that they were in Samaria.
21When the king of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha, "My father, should I kill them?"
22"Of course not!" Elisha told him. "Do we kill prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and send them home again to their master."
23So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their king. After that, the Aramean raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.
Ben-Hadad Besieges Samaria
24Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram mobilized his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25As a result there was a great famine in the city. After a while even a donkey's head sold for two pounds of silver, and a cup of dove's dung cost about two ounces F14 of silver.
26One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, "Please help me, my lord the king!"
27"If the LORD doesn't help you, what can I do?" he retorted. "I have neither food nor wine to give you." 28But then the king asked, "What is the matter?" She replied, "This woman proposed that we eat my son one day and her son the next. 29So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said, 'Kill your son so we can eat him,' but she had hidden him."
30When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair. And as the king walked along the wall, the people could see that he was wearing sackcloth underneath next to his skin. 31"May God kill me if I don't execute Elisha son of Shaphat this very day," the king vowed.
32Elisha was sitting in his house at a meeting with the leaders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the leaders, "A murderer has sent a man to kill me. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out. His master will soon follow him."
33While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived. And the king F15 said, "It is the LORD who has brought this trouble on us! Why should I wait any longer for the LORD?"
FOOTNOTES:F14: Hebrew sold for 80 shekels [0.9 kilograms] of silver, and 1/4 of a cab [0.3 liters] of dove's dung cost 5 shekels [57 grams]. Dove's dung may be a variety of wild vegetable. F15: Hebrew he.
Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.


~ Lena’s Journalin’ ~
Oh man, this story is so cool. Elisha is a prophet of God, a representative for God in the earth. Things had been happening, he’d been teaching others about God and the people who were coming to hear were increasing. They wanted to make the place bigger so that even more people could come and become a part of what they were being a part of.
One sign of maturity in God’s kingdom is the desire to work and serve God and His people. These had that desire, they saw a need and wanted to meet it. They wanted their teacher to be there to see that they’d made this progression in growth. They were doing/being what they’d been being taught.
Doing what we’ve been taught is not always easy, in fact to some it feels impossible, especially when a mishap occurs. That axe head represents our mistakes and shortcomings, the impossibilities we face when we decide to go forth and go ahead and grow up and especially whenever we decide to be a part of serving in God’s house. We hit “walls” resistances that do not want to allow us to go on with serving God or his people. There are always barricades of some sort to keep us from going on. Ever notice you get involved at church up to a certain point and then shrink back and feel you just can’t do anymore? Or maybe you felt like serving, but now you don’t and every other thing seems to come up and want to take the place of serving, you’ve lost that grateful feeling? This is an example of that happening.
If that axe head sunk and stayed sunk, there’d be no possible way he could continue the work, right? In fact he’d have had to pay a pretty price for having participated in the work! Finding the axe head would be a miracle, but a much needed one. IF there was a way to find it, the work and participation in the work could happen. This is the part people can easily miss.
Finding the axe head and making the miracle happen that keeps us growing in the work of God is imperative. We also must participate in its finding and retrieving. How do we do that? Embrace the wood. What’s the wood? The wood is sacrifice unto God, where my flesh is laid down. Where I schedule the work of God into my life, not de-schedule it and place it in a secondary or less spot. From going to regular church services, to serving in nursery or being a regular part of your cell group, all of this is what I mean by actively participating in the family of God and bringing the increase. We actually will not and cannot increase and help others to get some of what we have if we do not continue and step up further into the work ourselves. We actually prepare the way for others to come and learn as we also have learned.
You mean I have to get a hold of the work of God while laying down my life? Yes. You mean I have to change? Yes. I thought miracles just happen, I don’t have to do anything, I like that. Yeah, your flesh likes that, because it does not want to disappear so He will appear. Embracing the wood, fuel for burning, is the way to make the miracle of change happen. To take it from a happening to a reality.
We have paid dearly for a whole lot of nothing, a whole lot of emptiness. Why are we not willing to give our whole lives into that which is eternal in nature? Actually when we will not and we refuse to give into the work of God, allowing everything in this life to come before it in importance, we end up bringing a curse on the earth, the earth begins to groan, enemies arise and come against us and we wonder why. We did not fight against them by being in our places in the house of God to further the work of God. Now we’re up against something, it is a product of uncrucified flesh.
It is so the mercy and grace of God to keep bringing us the offers, up until we no longer have any days left on earth. God has a big big work to be done, He needs as many as will. He’ll take whosoever will into His family business. It’s so His grace to keep offering me opportunities. Hey do you want to come to cell group? Would you serve in Children’s church? How about be in church Sunday, Wednesday and for special assemblies, the more the merrier, right? Right. Why? He’s assembling an army against His enemies. Are there more here with us? Yes there are! In the angelic realm it is a given, how about in our natural realm, it is obviously an option, but how many will opt to, now, later on or in the end? Whosoever will, lay down the others things of their lives to live in resurrection life of Christ to accomplish the will of the Father God, which is love.
Will you?

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 – in multiple translations….
The Amplified Bible
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of [buildings that have laid waste for] many generations; and you shall be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
The Holy Bible, New International Version®
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
The New King James Version
Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
GOD'S WORD
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the foundations of past generations. You will be called the Rebuilder of Broken Walls and the Restorer of Streets Where People Live.
New Life Bible
And your cities which were destroyed long ago will be built again. You will set up the stones of the bases of the old buildings. You will be called the one who builds again the broken walls, and who makes the streets on which people live like new.