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.

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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 Translation

~ Lena’s Journalin’
What an awesome day when a disciple rises up with a desire to build and comes and tells the teacher, “Hey, com’on, let’s go here and I’ll lead, you just come along and watch”!
That’s like a child taking off walking, or eating with their own fork, or potty training by themselves, hearing them talk like a little adult, or even reading, or writing, making wise decisions, cleaning up their own messes, helping mom with hers, driving, getting a job, etc, etc. It’s all about growth in evidence and it is such a joyful thing, almost an awesome thing to see nurtured growth in action.
Notice how Elisha just said “ok” and went along. He didn’t want to miss seeing their faith for increase in action. Also, was it not wisdom that he was there while they were ready to go the next step which would be found in the exercise of their activated growth?
What is even greater than that is, they were at such a place with the mentor that they’d do what he said. As Ruth was with Naomi, she’d said, “ just tell me and whatever you say I’ll do”. THAT kind of statement, that kind of heart is not easily found, nor is it easily developed. It is not that a teacher or parent or leader or boss has not been there to nurture it, it is that we’ve lived in a rebellious world and we’re still learning to see that to be like the world is to be at enmity with God’s ways. The world and culture have taught us so much through default, but Jesus said, “you are in the world, and not of it”. That “not of” part is not going to just fall into place, in fact, those who are serious about being “in but not of” will have to seize those truths by violent siege, with strategy, on purpose. All true worship of God starts with seeing Him, seeing His plans, seeing His sacrifice, seeing His will.
So have you grown? If not, why not? Have you submitted to what it takes to grow and grow quickly? If not, what hinders that in your life? Worldly thinking and patterns? Lack of teach ability? How ‘bout going to that place where the axe head dropped, back to the place where you were once teachable? How about overcoming whatever obstacle you ran into that stumped your ability to receive and grow on.
Maybe someone in leadership was harsh on you. David was to be king, but he had to serve under Saul the king for a time (of training) first. It was many years and there were many opportunities for David to quit, but in order to fulfill the Divine mission of God, he had to endure and press through the controlling spirit of Saul. God actually used the controlling spirit of Saul to shape and test David’s character. Wow.
Going back may mean for you forgiveness extended towards the leader you felt wronged you. Be rid of the shame and the hindrances, be determined that no matter where you are now at in this Christianity you determine to grow and live a life that will bring God glory, nothing or no one hindering your growth. Bless those who use and curse you. That’s what Jesus said. If we do that and just plain ol’ trust God, He’ll deal with who needs to be dealt with.
Be brave, you have a responsibility to live, you are going to be accountable before God and I’ll give you a hint- You won’t be able to take anyone in with you and say it was their fault that you didn’t grow or walk in obedience to the call of God on you! You’ll stand alone before God and all of your excuses will fall aside as you sense His great love and the love you now wished you’d reciprocated. You’ll literally fall to your knees and cry, because you’ll know anything, everything impossible was made possible for you through the Blood of the Lamb. There really was not one valid excuse. Selfishness is not an excuse, laziness is not an excuse, hurt, pain, sickness, intimidation, were not excuses either, for you will know and will understand how great His love was for us that He overcame the power of these things to hinder us, we just allowed them to hinder us and give us invalid excuses. We did not stand on the sacrifice and declare Him. We declared us instead. We did not overcome anything for His will. We let nothings be important and we will see at that time how unimportant they were/are.
I’ve decided to press in to this now, stand before the Father God now. For if I stand before Him now, I’ll stand before Him later and it will just be another day to stand before Him who loves me and whom I love. I live to intimately know the One who overcame for me, the One who set me free, the One who heals me, and covers and protects me. The One who gives my life purpose and causes me to overcome, by His precious Blood.
Go back to the place where you were hindered, stand before God and get healed, get cleansed, ask God for forgiveness for not believing the blood of His Son was enough to heal and help you. Be made whole again, and grow, grow, grow.
Do you know the enemies of God have mobilized forces against any and everyone who would even think to believe in Christ? As much as they have assembled forces is as much and more of how we are to wake up, stand watch, protect and guard our faith in Him. We cannot stand guard or fight very well alone when there are so many assembled, strategizing for our souls. This is one reason to allow faith and trust in Christ to bring us into fellowship with a body of believers, who know about spiritual warfare and will stand watch along with us, alerting us of enemies and giving us tools to fight.
Has God or His word or a sister or brother in the Lord ever tried to prevent you from going somewhere or ding anything? I wonder if you did it anyway? I wonder if you ever regretted not listening? So many heartaches and defeats can be prevented ahead of time. In fact most of what God teaches us is ahead of time to avoid the pitfalls.
Notice this say the warnings were given several times. We actually train our ears to hear or not hear those warnings. This is another area where we will not be able to tell God, “Well Lord, I just wasn’t told”! Whew!
The only way there will be more on your side than are against you, is if you are on the right side. If God has warned you and you stay put where you are, yet you expect God to somehow show up on your side for you rather than you fulfilling a requirement of blessing which is, to change sides, you are deceived by enemy smoke and need to clear the air, wake up, see where you are at and repent- meaning change sides. We are the ones who need to change sides, ideas, plans, wills, hearts, etc. We cannot just do what we want and expect God to bless it. That is lowly self-natured thinking.
When we refuse to look and see which side we are really on, we live deceived and when all hell breaks loose in our lives we get mad at God, we get mad at circumstances, we get mad at the church, we get mad at prophets, etc. All the while we are where we are because we chose to be where we are at. We chose to stay where we are, thinking wrongly, that God will come over to our side and protect us. We are NOT protected on enemy territory. It is enemy territory.
The enemy is out to steal kill and destroy any hint of victory in our lives. He is out to steal kill and destroy our faith in Christ, God’s Son.
He is a devourer, He lies , but his goal no matter what he says is to eat up the very promise of God, that Christ would be formed in us.
The nature of the devourer is to devour, everything about our lives, our time, money, labor, gain, increase, progress, growth, faith, fellowship. If any of these areas are being taken away from you, you need to open up your eyes and see who’s side you are on.
It’s never too late to change sides as long as you are alive. When you change sides and stand and hold that ground, you’ll see a turn around quickly. God is a miracle working God and when we get on the right side He adjusts our lives and orders and redeems even times. He does this so we can get the ball rolling so He can finally use us to get the work done He needs done in the earth. He’s been waiting to use us.
So…
Daily Meditation/Recital/Question
Ask myself daily: “What Page Am I On?”