Lena Journals to 1 Kings 18 Happy Sunday to you!

I love reading and studying the Bible. If we don’t study it, we won’t unlock the treasures inside of the rich word of God. When we do study God’s word it opens up to our human understanding and gives us a taste of the goodness of knowing God Himself as the personage He is. It causes us to relate to our Father in understanding and relationship.
So many times I begin by looking up meanings of the names written to begin to unlock keys of understanding in the passages. I always find it seems so coincidental what the names of the specific characters mean and I REALIZE God has set everything up so Divinely, there are no coincidences, just a pure and Holy Word, with a great amount of meaning to understand.
Elijah means, Jehovah (THE LORD of ALL) is God. He is the LORD of the entire universe. He IS God! We can choose Him or not, yet that does not change. It is He who IS God. All of life on earth is about finding for each person, their lord and then deciding how much to serve and love him. Old Bob Dylan song – Ya gotta serve sumbuddy, right?
Ahab means “your father’s brother”. As I think of this name, I see we face two commands in all of life, one leads towards the other. Love God and then also, love His people.
That is not easy to do, in fact one seems to be easier than the other, but if we do the one we will be able to do the other. So we love Father, and His great and Holy love, helps us to love the brethren. In fact we’re told if we do not love men, we do not really love God our Father. I’m sure we will feel like we do still love God even if we don’t seem to able to love people. I hear so many say, I love God, but the people thing is a whole ‘nother deal. Yes that is true, it is, but one cannot but help the other. When we love God we love who He loves. He loved us when we did not deserve it.
So up on Mt Carmel, Elijah had to face loving God and people. Elijah means – Jehovah is the Lord, Carmel is the place where fruit is, not pride and its ugly effects, but fruit is able to be brought forth through humility, that I may face loving God and His people.
This is our mountain to conquer.
I do not know how Christians live and progress without the rain, and the washing and refreshing water of the Holy Spirit’s welcomed presence in day to day life. I do not know how people can fulfill all God asks without the supernatural inborn power of God. I don’t know how we’d ever win any contests with evil or overcome any obstacles, without His will at work on the insides of us.
Rain? We need His rain.
Tell, the brother of my father, it is about to rain! How severe is the famine for God’s Holy Spirit leading us into pathways of righteousness where there is any water to bear fruit that will feed others? Without rain, without water, without the spirit, all is dry, very dry.
Has “Jehovah is Lord” come to offer rain? Yes He has, everyday as long as men are alive, He has.
Is there a reputation that precedes the current message we are hearing of turning towards the heart and spirit of God?
I love God’s great grace to save us. He is so faithful to help lead us, to lay stuff in our pathway to prepare us for the coming understanding of whatever new words we are hearing. He is faithful to prepare us. We must take over and be faithfully prepared and preparers of the ways of the Lord for others.
No matter what had happened with Elijah, in this messenger’s life up to this date, he was led by the spirit of God. God led him to put value in his own words. What he said, was what he did. If he said it, it was because God was showing him to do it.
Words must have more value placed on them by each of us personally. If we value them, we won’t spend them cheaply, nor need to swear by them to solidify them. If what we say we also do, this is a way we invite God to be Lord in our lives, for we are as He is, we understand who He is and how He operates and so we are able to copy Him as well.
Ever been dubbed as a troublemaker? That can be misperceived. Elijah was called a troublemaker by Ahab, (his father’s brother), but the trouble he was making, had to do with the disbanding of the works of evil and of darkness. He was wrecking havoc on the spirits of falsity. He was overturning the tables on religion. That makes people, even brethren, uncomfortable, it can cause a great amount of discomfort and upset people, who may not be seeing the works of darkness being disbanded, even in their own lives. Ahab spoke from his discomfort.
Elijah’s response to Ahab is the kind of response we will hear from God if we are willing to listen to it. He said, it is you (your present or past choices) that have caused the trouble. The places we are in and what we are dealing with that is causing us discomfort usually comes from choices for the pathway we are on.
Now, back when we made the choices, we probably did not see the end result, but here we are feeling troubled, and I believe some trouble is the grace of God to show us a different pathway, just as pain tells us to remove our hand off of a hot stove would be.
I like to step back and look at my own uncomfortable ness and instead of trying to immediately stop the pain, I want to know what has caused it and dig deeply to a root issue, uncover it and disband works of darkness that have brought my life to this point of painfulness. The spirit and power of Elijah, Jehovah is God, has a root issues ministry.
So how does trouble come? I love how the answers are so easily found in God’s word. Elijah answered Ahab, you have refused to obey the commandments of the Lord and have worshipped other gods (instead of worshiping only the Most High God-Lord).
Rebellion to the commandments of God’s word is a root issue that keeps us from growing and prospering in our kingdom walk. Going our own way hinders us, explaining ourselves with human reason and exempting ourselves from following the Lord’s commands only, brings trouble.
There always has to be a contest of the hearts of men. So many times we’re so entrenched in our excuses and lifestyle choices that we don’t even see we’ve chosen Baal worship. The contest shows the difference. Ever struggle with the commandments of God, ever struggle with what He’s asked of your life? The struggle is a sign there is an area yet to surrender to God being God in your life.
Ask yourself what Elijah asked the church goers of his day. How long will you waiver between two opinions? Reason and the walk of the spirit by faith? Needing to know before doing and just doing what God has said? How long?
As we ponder this in our day to day lives, things do not get easier, they actually get harder.
How does God answer us in the struggle? By fire. By fire, that which consumes all of our doubts, fears, inhibitions. He changes the state of who we are, where we are. We can never figure God out or reason or bargain with Him. We must accept His will and engage ourselves to walk in it ,by faith in it.
The prophets of Baal were giving their lives to him and his will, whether they “meant to” or not, they were. That’s what the god of the world is after, our lives. All of his challenges are a contest of the wills, Who will serve who.
Is rain important to us? Is it available? Maybe it needs to be invited, and re-directed here. Maybe rejecting the Lord’s commands has held it off. You do know the Holy Spirit can be grieved and disinvited by the human will, right? He needs to be invited back, if He was offended by us. How long will we take to invite and look for Him? Until He returns? 7 means, completely, all the way, until it is finished. Don’t stop pursuing God until He comes back your way.