Lena Journals to 1 Kings 19 Today

It is interesting how Ahab’s heart must have been overtaken as it was bent towards evil. He saw the contest of the Lord vs Baal and then he saw the heavens open up and rain pour out upon dry lands where famine had prevailed and still he had no regard for God’s messenger, thus no regard for God nor His word.
This leads each of us to ask ourselves, what all have we seen by the Might of the Lord our God, yet we still have not turned our hearts to be given wholly and completely over to His will and plan?
Faithful church goers have the greatest challenge of all, for they see so much. Seeing so much of God’s works on a day to day basis and hearing so much of His word and testimony of others is what The Lord wants every member of His body to do and be a part of, yet there is a maintenance of faith and trust that each congregation member must put themselves into continually. That of staying thankful in all things. That of praising God outwardly regularly (keeps the pride level down), and entry into service of others. The most important portion of all for the maintaining of one’s faith is being a doer of the words we hear regularly. If we do not make a plan and do God’s words, we’ll become calloused to them and to God. We’ll step into deception and we may see the works of God’s mighty hand and yet not believe Him.
Remember the Bible was written and translated and given us so we’d hear and learn and not have to have the personal experiences with the service of evil, ourselves. Israel was in bondage and slavery, were miraculously freed, fed, clothed, etc. and then they murmured and complained against God and His leaders. How much complaining of leaders or church order or disorder have you been a part of lately? That’s another red flag warning for complacency and deception. The Bible says give the devil no place. When it was giving us that “advice”, it was speaking to church members. If we give an inch the enemy would gladly take a mile and can ruin the very one’s he’s after, those who look most like the One he hates!
As for the complaining against leaders, we can easily fall into agreeing with what someone sees as wrong and shares with us. Watch out though, it is a trap! Jezebel awaits the devouring of any and every leader “she” can. She looks to make congregations of complainers out from congregations, by sharing news, gathering the discontented, causing them to agree together and thus she puts her sword into the heart of churches everywhere.
Guess what?
Churches are full of imperfect people, who live under the grace and mercy of God and are forgiven, repenting and learning and growing. There is NO perfect church. It is no news that something may be wrong at your church! Do you love, serve and trust God? Do your leaders? Can you extend grace, peace, support and intercession their way, not allowing the enemy to have any footholds in your house of God? Can you serve them in love even in their humanness? Is the point of being there to serve perfected people? Or to grow in the Lord, trusting Him in all things? Can you entreat men or women of God as ones who care about their end and the condition of the church body they lead, in order to build up and preserve their own faith, or are you one willing to tear down what was built this far?
These are questions, we as congregation members, should ask ourselves.
Some may say, well, what if…..? I’ve seen God come in to a healthy congregation and take the pastor out, not because there was murmuring amongst the members about Him, nor because man made sure he was put out, but because God saw the secret sins and chose to expose them, for the benefit of a faith filled congregation of people. The revelation hurt badly, but the congregation was not as divided as when the enemy divides it out!
Don’t you think that God knew why Elijah thought he was running away? Of course. That is the same type of questioning the Lord had for Adam. He wanted the man to look at what he was doing and why.
In all things do we know who God is? Many a time we see the enemy as huge, magnificent, larger than life and especially big in present circumstances, but do we know who the Lord is? Have we seen Him and the works of His hands? Do we remember Him? Or are we so deceived into thinking the evil after us is greater than the God in us?
Did you notice the Lord showed Himself to Elijah and then asks the question again, only to hear Elijah repeat his first perception of the circumstances? I noticed I do the same thing. I come to church with a whirlwind of problems that my mind tells me are huge. We have a God inspirited service and the answers for my situation are right there, then I leave, go home and begin to think as I was thinking before I was a part of the awesome and glorious service!!!
It looks like Elijah was not allowed by the Lord to go on further than this place after he did not change his perception of how big the enemy was. It looks like he was about to be replaced. It appears the Lord was graciously angry.
All of us are in this place where we could choose to stay at the place we’ve grown to, happy that we even got this far, or we can go on to where God has for us to go. God always has more for us to do and more for us to learn, as long as we are alive, we would be the ones who say, it is enough. There’s always more in His heart for men to participate with Him in and do, the deal with Him is it is all optional to us, we do not have to do anything. He sometimes won’t even tell us what it is, or what would be ahead for us, if He sees we have our own agendas and are unwilling. He’s looking for hearts after His will and open to Hs ways.
God needed a man who would do double what Elijah did. You’d think if Elijah made God angry God would just turn away form Him, but God used Him to train Elisha up to the place he presently was at and then God would take over after this to lead Elisha further than Elisha went. This should be the way with our seed, naturally and spiritually speaking. We should expect them to grow beyond our willingness. The best though would be for us to stay willing and grow as large as we can in Christ during the days of earth we have left, and still watch our children take off after us and go further.
When Elijah came to Elisha what was Elisha doing? Plowing a field. He wasn’t formally in Bible school or ministry yet, but he was doing the work of the Lord spiritually speaking. He was working, he was not idle, he was plowing a field, supporting his family, a business owner with twelve teams of oxen! 12 is a very significant number Biblically speaking. It is about the government of God’s kingdom. Elisha was living inside of kingdom principles already!
Has anyone godly ever asked you to follow them as they follow Christ? Have they ever asked you to grow and do more than what you already feel are the good things you presently do that are helping work the kingdom? That is how it is, it is not that God doesn’t recognize what it is we are presently doing. He’s always calling us to more growth, for this journey is an eternal one. Elisha could have responded, hey man, look, I already get it, am already working it, already know right and wrong, am already involved in church, and am doing all I know, what else do you want from me? But no, he heeded the call of God without even knowing he was chosen by name by God! God was using a man to tell Elisha of his call if he’d take the offer. It was up to him, he did not have to, neither do we.
Elisha left all the good stuff he knew and was already doing and ran after Elijah. Many a time we consider what God has offered us and then when we go back to the house or to see what all we may be leaving behind, we reconsider. I’ve seen this over and over again, more than not. We get overwhelmed by what we’re leaving and the unseen world we’d be heading into does not seem as real or as rewarding or as secure. We’ve entered the test of “want to’s”. God will allow us to stay where we are. That is the hard part of all of it. He’s not forcing us, He’s just seeing if we “want to”.
Elijah’s reply to him was so key. Elijah was not going to push or pull him, he just said, go ahead go back, just consider what I just invited you to, from the Lord.
Elijah killed what he’d been involved in, he let it die! That way there was nothing left for him to look back to, after he made his decision, if there was any pull at all in the future to go back again, if anything ahead ever got hard etc, he may turn to look, but he made sure nothing was there to see, no desire other than following the call of God was in his vision. He had to do that, God would not remove any of it for him, that was the test he himself would have to pass through the strength of Christ if he so chose to.
He was a landowner, a boss, a successful business man, now he was leaving all that to be a servant, an assistant! Wow!